2:00PM Water Cooler 11/29/2024 | naked capitalism

The #Resistance

“Why Didn’t They Riot?” [Tom Klingenstein]. “For many… the downbeat response to Trump’s victory seemed out of place, given the feverish severity of how Democrats had articulated the stakes of this election. In her final month… The surface explanation, of course, is that the Democrats didn’t really believe any of it… Even if the leadership of the Democratic Party and its surrogates in the media were simply generating outrage, millions of Americans in their audiences now believe, with conviction, that the long night of fascism has finally descended on America….. In short, we didn’t see post-election violence or mass protests because the scale of Trump’s victory meant that such rioting would appear — at least temporarily — as the angry self-indulgence of a minority that had been legitimately beaten at the ballot box. But the riots will come soon enough, and Antifa will menace the streets once again.” • Hmmm.

“Women engage in mass ‘primal scream’ in wake of Trump victory: ‘Release our pain’” [FOX}. “Remarkable footage shows Wisconsin women screaming in unison towards Lake Michigan in the wake of Vice President Harris’s Nov. 5 loss to President-elect Trump. The footage, which recently went viral on social media, was originally posted by a Facebook user named Tamara Gibbs. The event took place at Klode Park in Whitefish Bay on Nov. 9. The extraordinary video shows around two dozen adult women screeching at the water. The screams eventually reach a crescendo, as video shows the shrieks getting gradually louder and louder until the group stopped…. ‘We need to start organizing… We have the opportunity to, in-state, in two years, take back the legislature,’ one woman said to roaring applause.” • Oh.

Realignment and Legitimacy

Sometimes speaking up helps:

Last week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC November 23

Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC November 16

Hospitalization

★ New York[5] New York State, data November 27:

★ National [6] CDC November 28:

Positivity

National[7] Walgreens November 25:

★ Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic November 23:

Travelers Data

Positivity[9] CDC November 4:
Variants[10] CDC November 4:

Deaths

Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11] CDC November 2:

Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12] CDC November 2:

LEGEND

1) ★ for charts new today; all others are not updated.

2) For a full-size/full-resolution image, Command-click (MacOS) or right-click (Windows) on the chart thumbnail and “open image in new tab.”

NOTES

[1] (CDC) Good news!

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* still popular. XEC has entered the chat. That WHO label, “Ommicron,” has done a great job normalizing successive waves of infection.

[4] (ED) Down.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). Actually improved; it’s now one of the few charts to show the entire course of the pandemic to the present day.

[7] (Walgreens) Down.

[8] (Cleveland) Down.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down.

[10] (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC.

[11] Deaths low, positivity down.

[12] Deaths low, ED down.

Stats Watch

There are no official statistics of interest today.

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Manufacturing: “Boeing’s new CEO clips corporate jet trips in show of restraint” [Seattle Times]. “Ortberg’s edict has curtailed flights to Boeing’s major operations centers in Seattle (commercial planemaking); Washington (corporate headquarters, defense arm); and Dallas (services unit). The prior set-up made it easy for top executives to commute from afar. Former CEO Dave Calhoun flew in from homes in New Hampshire and South Carolina, and his senior leadership team was scattered in places like Connecticut and Toronto. Flights have fallen off to Charleston, South Carolina, and nearby Savannah, Georgia; White Plains, New York, close to Chief Financial Officer Brian West’s Connecticut home; and Toronto, where information technology head Susan Doniz is based. Calhoun, West and Doniz declined to comment for the story, a Boeing spokesperson said. While Ortberg, like his predecessors, must travel in a private jet, he is relocating to Seattle.” • “Must”?

Manufacturing: “‘Mayday!’: New details emerge after Boeing plane makes emergency landing at Mirabel airport” [CTV News]. “‘During deceleration after landing with the flaps retracted at Montreal-Mirabel airport, the left main landing gear collapsed until the left engine touched the ground. The aircraft continued on its engine-supported path until it came to a complete stop on the runway,’ the [federal Transportation Safety Board’s] summary of the incident stated. The agency said there was no fire but the plane sustained ‘significant damage.’” • On the bright side, a pretty robust airframe, it would seem.

Manufacturing: “Why Africa won’t shut the door on Boeing” [Times Aerospace]. “Production rates of the 737… have been capped by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) at 38 – the rate existing prior to the Alaska Airlines incident – until the FAA is satisfied that Boeing has got a grip of the situation. So, what does all this mean for African airlines? Probably less than in other regions of the world. Relatively few African carriers buy new aircraft direct from Boeing. Many tend to acquire second-hand machines… Will Boeing’s problems deter African airlines from placing future orders with the US manufacturer? Probably not; both Boeing and Airbus have huge order backlogs – place an order for a Boeing 737 or an Airbus A320neo today and you are unlikely to have it in service much before the end of the decade. African airlines that want to order from Boeing will probably take comfort from the fact that, by the time the new aircraft arrive, the company’s current problems will – hopefully – have been ironed out.”

Manufacturing: “COMAC: The quiet giant challenging the Airbus-Boeing duopoly” [Aerotime]. “COMAC (Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China) was officially formed on May 11, 2008, the product of a joint effort from various Chinese companies and institutions: (Aviation Industry Corporation of China (AVIC), Aluminum Corporation of China, Baosteel, Sinochem, Shanghai Guosheng Corporation and the SASAC (which manages Air China, China’s flag carrier). COMAC is therefore more akin to a conglomerate, a la United Aircraft Corporation (UAC) in Russia, which in turn encompasses famous names such as Ilyushin, Tupolev or Sukhoi. As such, COMAC regroups all China’s aircraft manufacturing capacities through 13 different companies, military and civilian alike and is government-owned.” Concluding: “Now what’s next for COMAC? There’s no shortage of challenges awaiting the Chinese manufacturer. In the near-term future, COMAC will have to digest a steep learning curve on the supply-chain side of the manufacturing process to address demand and increase delivery rates…. [T]he commercial airplanes market has virtually shrunk to an Airbus/Boeing duopoly for the past 25 years with Embraer and ATR in a different league. Therefore, it can be said that COMAC is the first real challenger to the duopoly, a welcome new entrant that will push the European and US manufacturers to be more innovative.” • Hmm. No Chinese engines, I believe.

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Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 66 Greed (previous close: 65 Greed) [CNN]. One week ago: 60 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Nov 29 at 11:29:59 AM ET.

Gallery

And now for something completely different:

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This entry was posted in Guest Post, Water Cooler on November 29, 2024 by Lambert Strether.

About Lambert Strether

Readers, I have had a correspondent characterize my views as realistic cynical. Let me briefly explain them. I believe in universal programs that provide concrete material benefits, especially to the working class. Medicare for All is the prime example, but tuition-free college and a Post Office Bank also fall under this heading. So do a Jobs Guarantee and a Debt Jubilee. Clearly, neither liberal Democrats nor conservative Republicans can deliver on such programs, because the two are different flavors of neoliberalism (“Because markets”). I don’t much care about the “ism” that delivers the benefits, although whichever one does have to put common humanity first, as opposed to markets. Could be a second FDR saving capitalism, democratic socialism leashing and collaring it, or communism razing it. I don’t much care, as long as the benefits are delivered.

To me, the key issue — and this is why Medicare for All is always first with me — is the tens of thousands of excess “deaths from despair,” as described by the Case-Deaton study, and other recent studies. That enormous body count makes Medicare for All, at the very least, a moral and strategic imperative. And that level of suffering and organic damage makes the concerns of identity politics — even the worthy fight to help the refugees Bush, Obama, and Clinton’s wars created — bright shiny objects by comparison. Hence my frustration with the news flow — currently in my view the swirling intersection of two, separate Shock Doctrine campaigns, one by the Administration, and the other by out-of-power liberals and their allies in the State and in the press — a news flow that constantly forces me to focus on matters that I regard as of secondary importance to the excess deaths. What kind of political economy is it that halts or even reverses the increases in life expectancy that civilized societies have achieved? I am also very hopeful that the continuing destruction of both party establishments will open the space for voices supporting programs similar to those I have listed; let’s call such voices “the left.” Volatility creates opportunity, especially if the Democrat establishment, which puts markets first and opposes all such programs, isn’t allowed to get back into the saddle. Eyes on the prize! I love the tactical level, and secretly love even the horse race, since I’ve been blogging about it daily for fourteen years, but everything I write has this perspective at the back of it.

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