By Lambert Strether of Corrente.
Bird Song of the Day
Common Nightingale, Piran, Slovenia.
In Case You Might Miss…
- Friday: RCP poll (Trump leads), new Covid table (good news).
- Spotted in the wild: First scenario for Democrats not surrendering the Presidency.
- Pennsylvania round-up.
- “Daddy’s home”.
- Boeing losing a billion a month to avoid spending a billion over four years. Make it make sense.
Politics
“So many of the social reactions that strike us as psychological are in fact a rational management of symbolic capital.” –Pierre Bourdieu, Classification Struggles
2024
Less two weeks to go!
Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:
Lambert here: Tiny margins, but all red. If I were running the Kamala campaign, I’d want to see some blue. Of course, we on the outside might as well be examining the entrails of birds when we try to predict what will happen to the subset of voters (undecided; irregular) in a subset of states (swing), and the irregulars, especially, who will determine the outcome of the election but might as well be quantum foam, but presumably the campaign professionals have better data, and have the situation as under control as it can be MR SUBLIMINAL Fooled ya. Kidding!.
“CNN’s Enten: Rising Support Among Independent Voters Good Sign For Trump” (RealClearPolitics). Enten: “In September of 2024, a month ago, Kamala Harris was up five points among independents. Now, though, she’s only up by two points among a key block in the center of the electorate, down nine points from where Biden was at the end of the 2020 campaign. Of course, this is a national picture. What is going on in those key battleground states like Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, the Great Lakes, that ‘blue wall’ right? Joe Biden won them by five points over Donald Trump last time around. But look at where we are today. This is the type of movement Donald Trump likes to see in the center of the electorate — up by a point. Of course, that’s well within any margin of error, but again, it’s the movement, it is the trends we’re looking at. When you flip a group from being plus five Biden to now plus one Trump, that’s the type of movement Donald Trump loves to see, and it’s the type of movement that gives Democrats some agitation. You saw it nationally, and you see it in the blue wall states.” • Yep. More Enten:
There’s a real shot Trump may get his great white whale: winning the popular vote. Polls show the race nationally is basically even as Trump runs far ahead of where he polled in 2016 or 2020.
He’d be the 1st Republican to win the popular vote in 20 years & only 2nd in 36 years. pic.twitter.com/Pp4LJPwUZe
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) October 25, 2024
If the polls, again, are undercounting Trump….
* * * “How “Trump is a fascist” became Kamala’s closing argument” (Vox). “Though we’re in the closing weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, you could be forgiven for thinking it’s 2023 all over again. That’s because Vice President Kamala Harris has largely settled on a closing campaign message that sounds a lot like the idea President Joe Biden made the centerpiece of his campaign: that Donald Trump presents an existential threat to American democracy…. Harris’s recent return to a democracy message seems to be in response to the closeness of the presidential contest in battleground states. According to polling, she’s been largely unable to make more inroads with independents or continue making gains with swing-state voters after an initial burst of support after taking up her party’s nomination. There’s an ever-so-small chunk of undecided voters left in those states — so peeling away at the margins of Trump’s support could make all the difference. That’s partially why these appeals to protecting democracy are being made in front of moderate and disaffected Republican audiences…. ‘On the constitutional piece, there are a lot of people out there. I think Liz Cheney and Dick Cheney give permission to those folks who want to find a reason to do the right thing,’ Walz said.” • Harry Truman said: “Given the choice between a Republican and someone who acts like a Republican, people will vote for the real Republican all the time.” But I don’t think Truman took into account the idea that a Democrat would try to turn themseles into a Republican, as with Cheney, all the endorsements of Never Trumpers, and so on. Cheney helps Kamala to create a “permission structure” for Republican voters to accept this transformation (and especially white suburban PMC women).
Kamala (D): “Hillary Clinton accuses Trump of ‘reenacting’ infamous Nazi rally at Madison Square Garden: We can’t ignore it” (FOX). “One other thing that you’ll see next week, Kaitlan, is Trump actually reenacting the Madison Square Garden rally in 1939. I write about this in my book,’ Clinton told CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Thursday night. ‘President Franklin Roosevelt was appalled that neo-Nazis, fascists in America were lining up to essentially pledge their support for the kind of government that they were seeing in Germany. So I don’t think we can ignore it.’” • Again, here’s the text of FDR’s speech at Madison Square Garden (a speech, by the way, that no liberal Democrat could or would give today). Grant that Trump is a fascist. What does Madison Square Garden have to do with anything?
Kamala (D): “The Oprah Phase and the Trump Danger” (Peggy Noonan). From October 17: “If Ms. Harris thinks Mr. Trump is a danger to the Constitution then this is more than an election, it is a national emergency. In an emergency you put your own ideological purity and pride aside.” • Given the date, it looks like Harris doubled down on Nooners with the “Fascist!” talking point (and normally I think Nooners is pretty near pitch perfect, but not this time; the cats eat the cat food, it is true; but the dog’s won’t eat the dog food.
* * * Kamala (D): “Behind the Curtain: Dems fear they’re blowing it” (Axios). “(W)hat’s striking is how our private conversations with Democrats inside and outside her campaign reveal broad concern that little she does, says — or tries — seems to move the needle…. This is after Democrats spent $1 billion — nearly twice as much as Republicans — over the past three months to polish her image and soil former President Trump’s…. And this is after Trump’s cringy 40-minute onstage sway (39 minutes, at least get the Democrat talking point right) to ’80s music, his threats to target ‘enemies within, calling his opponent ‘retarded’ and ‘sh*t’…. Harris inherited a very tough hand. Establishing and executing a campaign for president starting just 3½ months before an election is unprecedented in modern politics.”
Kamala (D): “Democrats fear race may be slipping away from Harris” (The Hill). “‘Everyone keeps saying, ‘It’s close.’ Yes, it’s close, but are things trending our way? No. And no one wants to openly admit that,’ one Democratic strategist said. ‘Could we still win? Maybe. Should anyone be even slightly optimistic right now? No.’ Another strategist was even more dour when asked about the current state of play: “If this is a vibe election, the current vibes ain’t great.”
Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’s Blue-Collar Blues” (City Journal). “(The Trump GOP’s) more populist approach to economics has removed many potential deal-breakers with working-class voters. For instance, economically vulnerable voters view federal entitlements as a vital safety net, and fears of cuts to these programs made many suspicious of Republicans. In his 2012 reelection campaign, Barack Obama (who did well with working-class voters compared with recent Democratic nominees) bludgeoned Mitt Romney over entitlements. The Republican Party under Trump has instead emphasized keeping much of that safety net intact, and there’s a kind of internal logic to its combination of tight borders, family subsidies, federal entitlements, and cheap energy as a backstop for working Americans.”
Kamala (D): “Harris Makes Her Play for Suburban Women Voters” (The Nation). “Importantly, Harris has made no known policy concessions to win Cheney’s support. Indeed, the only big news from the town halls came when Cheney, a staunch abortion opponent, agreed with Harris that since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, states have gone too far with abortion bans and restrictions that harm women.” True, running the Defense Department wouldn’t count as a policy concession.” And: “(T)he town halls (with Kamala and Cheney) were mainly noteworthy because of the warmth between the two women. Cheney, who once derided Harris as a ‘radical liberal,’ now describes her as someone with a ‘sincere heart,’ ‘character,’ and ‘courage.’ Harris likewise called Cheney courageous for opposing Trump and supporting her. The vice president, who opposed the Iraq War, nevertheless aligns with Cheney on support for Ukraine and maintaining the NATO alliance, which Trump opposes. ‘If Trump were president, Vladimir Putin would be in Kyiv right now,’ Harris said in Waukesha County. The tragedy in Gaza only came up there, when an audience member shouted, ‘What about Gaza?’ and was reportedly removed from the room.” • Blob vibes. I think when you’re inside the Blob, it must feel like a warm, soothing bath….
Kamala (D): “Opinion: I’m a non-MAGA conservative. Sanctimonious liberals make me want to vote Trump” (USA Today). “Ahead of the 2016 election, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, who was constantly trying to play up what a brute Trump was, said you could put half of his supporters into a ‘basket of deplorables,’ because they must be as ‘sexist’ and ‘racist’ as the Republican nominee himself. (It turns out, that wasn’t a smart thing for Clinton to say.) Along those lines, Clinton also played the woman card, making a big deal about how she would be the first woman president in the United States. And she made it clear that all women had a duty to vote for her, regardless of their political views. If they didn’t vote for her, then it must be because of the men in their lives. That rhetoric was insulting to women then, and it still is today. Not to mention ineffective. Yet, that has not stopped the media and Harris supporters from echoing that sentiment now. For instance, Jess Piper, a progressive activist in Missouri, recently opined the following on social media: ‘White women: your vote is private. I don’t care what kind of sign your husband has put out in your yard, or what your pastor preaches on Sunday, you can vote your conscience. You can vote for your children and grandchildren. No one will know.’” • Just lie to your husband, no problem…
* * * Kamala (D): This should certainly go down well with the undecided and irregular voters:
The newest statue on the National Mall: Giant Turd on @SpeakerPelosi‘s desk: pic.twitter.com/5L5fhtqFko
— kc jordan (@kc_jordan) October 25, 2024
Just in time for Kamala’s big rally on Tuesday! (The thing about liberal Democrats when they try scatological snark: They’re very bad at it.) NOTE The turd is the J6 rioters, not Nancy Pelosi.
* * * Kamala (D): “Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff slapped me in the face so hard I spun around … I’m disgusted by his fake ‘perfect spouse’ persona” (Daily Mail). “Doug Emhoff’s ex-girlfriend has spoken exclusively to DailyMail.com claiming that he slapped her in the face so hard she spun around at a 2012 celebrity event in France. The woman, a successful New York attorney, is remaining anonymous, but decided to speak out after Emhoff, Kamala Harris’s husband, denied the claims through a spokesman….. DailyMail.com broke the story about the alleged unprovoked attack on October 2, by reporting accounts from two friends she told immediately after the incident, a third she told in 2018, and documents evidencing her relationship and trip to France with Emhoff. The bombshell allegations, which followed DailyMail.com’s revelation in August that Emhoff cheated on his first wife with his daughter’s nanny Najen Naylor, received little or no coverage from politically center-left major news outlets.” • Better evidence than other moral panics, including the current one about Trump.
* * * Kamala (D): They send email:
Except from Open Secrets: Kamala Harris (D) Total: $906,121,880; Small Donors: $403,573,038; Percent from small donors: 44.54%. Hardly the “vast majority.”
* * * Trump (R): “Donald Trump’s McDonald’s Shift Went Down Best With Gen Z” (Newsweek). N = 514. “A total of 39 percent of Gen Z (people born between 1997 and 2012) said Trump’s stunt made them like him somewhat or much more. This is significantly more than the 23 percent of Gen Z who said the shift made them like Trump less, while 38 percent said it did not impact how much they like Trump.”
Trump (R): “Donald Trump and the F-Word” (Susan Glasser, The New Yorker). “Would you really have wanted to believe, in the lovely fall days in the twilight of Barack Obama’s Presidency… ” • Wait, what? “(T)he lovely fall days in the twilight of Barack Obama’s Presidency”? Really? Could Glasser possibly be describing her actually feelings here? Also, Clinton was right about everything. NOTE: There’s no one single reason why Glasser characterizes Trump as a fascist; just arguments from authority and vibes.
Trump (R): America, “you’ve been a little bad girl.” Really?
Tucker Carlson’s vision of a Trump presidency is that “dad comes home” and says to America,
“You’ve been a bad girl. You’ve been a bad little girl and you’re getting a vigorous spanking, right now. … It’s going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me.”pic.twitter.com/fh25KmyYmG— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) October 24, 2024
Let’s just hope there aren’t any devotees of Sylvia Plath out there. Or Theodore Roethke.
* * * “USPS is delivering ballots quickly and on time” (Government Executive). “Through the first three weeks of October, USPS delivered 97.8% of election mail pieces on time according to its delivery windows and 99.9% were delivered within seven days. That performance comes despite many parts experiencing slower mail delivery overall in 2024, though it is roughly in line with how USPS delivered ballots in 2020 and 2022. The Postal Service is delivering ballots in 1.4 days on average and within one day of its expected delivery time in 98.3% of cases. USPS this week began instituting “extraordinary measures” to ensure ballots are sent out and returned quickly, a series of steps it typically implements near elections and that it is currently required to put in place under a settlement agreement with the NAACP. They consist of extra deliveries and collections, special pickups, expanded hours at processing plants, Sunday collections and visual checks of various points for ballots. The Postal Service was already conducting daily sweeps and “all clears” at its facilities for ballots, and ensuring postmarks for any piece of mail identified as a ballot.”
* * * AZ, NM (and AK) (map of Indian reservations): “Biden makes historic apology for ‘sin’ of U.S. role in deadly Indigenous boarding schools” (PBS). • Why now? A question that answers itself once asked.
NC: “Harris, Trump teams scramble for votes in North Carolina’s hurricane damaged west” (Reuters). “Though first-day voting set a record, overall turnout remains a question mark. ‘This (the hurricane) has changed everything,’ (North Carolina State Representative Lindsey Prather) said.”
PA: “Trouble for Harris and Walz in Pennsylvania?” (The Nation). ” If the Pennsylvania Harris campaign has indeed turned over every stone in its pursuit of victory, that is news to state Representative Chris Rabb, who has represented North Philly’s vote-rich, 75 percent Black, 200th legislative district in the state House of Representatives for the last eight years. Every cycle, his district has had the highest turnout of any in the state, but so far, he tells me, the Harris campaign has made no asks of him. None. For the spring primary, he had built a squad of youth organizers, all paid $21 an hour, to talk and listen to voters in his district. But a proposal that he sent the Harris campaign over the summer to build a similar team went nowhere. Speaking to Nomiki Konst of The Hill’s Youtube show over the weekend, Rabb said he remained optimistic that Harris would win the state. But he was also frustrated. ‘Harris is using a Biden infrastructure with Obama vibes,’ Rabb observes. ‘And that’s a little nerve-wracking, because the Biden infrastructure…does not involve the hard-core grassroots organizing that was emblematic of the Obama ascendancy.’ Rabb is also critical of how much the Harris team is relying on outsiders and celebrity surrogates rather than locals to reach voters like his constituents. ‘That’s the challenge that I have with the infrastructure that Kamala Harris inherited from the Biden team. … The most meaningful thing you can do is invest in those communities.’ I’ve heard similar stories from organizers in purple Bucks County, who say that the Harris campaign, which is staffed by outsiders, isn’t interested in collaborating with local or state races, preferring instead to organize the many out-of-state volunteers flocking in by bus each weekend to canvass.” • Door-knocking depends on who knocks at the door.
PA: “New Report: Populism Wins Pennsylvania” (Jacobin). Jacobin sponsored a YouGov poll in PA (N = 1000). “Messaging around Trump as a threat to democracy underperformed all other Harris messages among virtually every group. While the strongest message we tested was supported by 58% of respondents, the “threat to democracy” message received just 49% support overall.” • Handy chart:
Where populism is defined as “economic populist messaging.”
PA: “Signs of the Times in Pennsylvania” (The Nation). “Out here, Democrats are the people still committed to stand up for decency, if you’ll pardon that old genteel word. They are people who would never vote for a convicted felon, let alone boast about it. My impression is that the Trump years have toughened them in a quiet, Pennsylvania kind of way; they’ve gotten used to being hassled, yelled at. There is no longer any vagueness about where you stand, no mushy middle.”
TX: “Texas not too big for Harris” (Politico). “‘Texas is not just a good showcase for how restrictive policies can get on abortion when you leave it to the states, but also the degree to which that kind of restrictive approach gets in front of — and does not align with — public opinion, including public opinion with a sizable share of Republicans,’ said Jim Henson, who directs the Texas Politics Project and co-directs the University of Texas/Texas Tribune Poll.” And: “Harris has made a habit of heading to states that she says illustrate the worst of policy impacts. She visited Florida last year to commemorate what would have been the 50th anniversary of Roe and went to Tennessee to discuss gun safety.”
The Wizard of Kalorama™
Sirota’s right:
Obama bailed out his Wall St donors, abandoned his promise to help homeowners & then millions were thrown out of their homes.
Obama now pretending he “doesn’t understand how we got so toxic & divided & bitter” is him assuming you’re too dumb to remember what happened. https://t.co/v75QUiXtln pic.twitter.com/bl48sfzdjH
— David Sirota (@davidsirota) October 24, 2024
Realignment and Legitimacy
“If Trump wins, should Democrats turn over the keys to the White House?” (Austin Sarat, Fulcrum). Sarat is the William Nelson Cromwell professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College. “It is not as if President Joe Biden and Vice President Harris needed Cheney’s warning to realize that allowing Trump to take power would likely mean the end of American democracy as we know it…. Is the end of democracy a price we should be prepared to pay? If not, what should the Democrats do in the face of a Trump electoral victory?…. Let me explore four options…. First, Biden can do nothing differently than he would have done for a winning Republican candidate who did not threaten to end democracy. … A second option would be for the Harris campaign to mount vigorous legal challenges to the election outcomes in states where Trump’s margin of victory is narrow and where there are plausible grounds for doing so…. A third option focuses on using the post-election period to engage in a mass mobilization campaign, like the one that occurred after Trump was elected in 2016. This one would have to be designed to resist what Trump has said he would do once he is back in the White House, but it would be geared to put in place the infrastructure to sustain protest over the long term…. The fourth option is by far the riskiest and most controversial. While the first three can be pursued within well-established constitutional norms, the fourth would, at first glance, seem to transgress those norms. Faced with the prospect of a Trump presidency, some, out of desperation, might urge Biden to turn the tables on Trump and refuse to transfer power to him. In this scenario, Biden would resign, and Harris would be sworn in as president. There would be no constitutional problem if he were to take this step. .” • And so it begins. What I like about option four is that it gives an account of why Biden is still in office.
Syndemics
“I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD.” –William Lloyd Garrison
Covid Resources, United States (National): Transmission (CDC); Wastewater (CDC, Biobot; includes many counties; Wastewater Scan, includes drilldown by zip); Variants (CDC; Walgreens); “Iowa COVID-19 Tracker” (in IA, but national data). “Infection Control, Emergency Management, Safety, and General Thoughts” (especially on hospitalization by city).
Lambert here: Readers, thanks for the collective effort. To update any entry, do feel free to contact me at the address given with the plants. Please put “COVID” in the subject line. Thank you!
Resources, United States (Local): AK (dashboard); AL (dashboard); AR (dashboard); AZ (dashboard); CA (dashboard; Marin, dashboard; Stanford, wastewater; Oakland, wastewater); CO (dashboard; wastewater); CT (dashboard); DE (dashboard); FL (wastewater); GA (wastewater); HI (dashboard); IA (wastewater reports); ID (dashboard, Boise; dashboard, wastewater, Central Idaho; wastewater, Coeur d’Alene; dashboard, Spokane County); IL (wastewater); IN (dashboard); KS (dashboard; wastewater, Lawrence); KY (dashboard, Louisville); LA (dashboard); MA (wastewater); MD (dashboard); ME (dashboard); MI (wastewater; wastewater); MN (dashboard); MO (wastewater); MS (dashboard); MT (dashboard); NC (dashboard); ND (dashboard; wastewater); NE (dashboard); NH (wastewater); NJ (dashboard); NM (dashboard); NV (dashboard; wastewater, Southern NV); NY (dashboard); OH (dashboard); OK (dashboard); OR (dashboard); PA (dashboard); RI (dashboard); SC (dashboard); SD (dashboard); TN (dashboard); TX (dashboard); UT (wastewater); VA (wastewater); VT (dashboard); WA (dashboard; dashboard); WI (wastewater); WV (wastewater); WY (wastewater).
Resources, Canada (National): Wastewater (Government of Canada).
Resources, Canada (Provincial): ON (wastewater); QC (les eaux usées); BC (wastewater); BC, Vancouver (wastewater).
Hat tips to helpful readers: Alexis, anon (2), Art_DogCT, B24S, CanCyn, ChiGal, Chuck L, Festoonic, FM, FreeMarketApologist (4), Gumbo, hop2it, JB, JEHR, JF, JL Joe, John, JM (10), JustAnotherVolunteer, JW, KatieBird, KF, KidDoc, LL, Michael King, KF, LaRuse, mrsyk, MT, MT_Wild, otisyves, Petal (6), RK (2), RL, RM, Rod, square coats (11), tennesseewaltzer, Tom B., Utah, Bob White (3).
Stay safe out there!
Look for the Helpers
Good news:
🧵 Here is some *wonderful* news that will make your covid-conscious day 🎉:
Per CT state senator Matt Lesser (democrat) 8th grader Eniola Shokunbi has secured $11.5 million in funding for school CR boxes.
Below is a photo of Ms. Shokunbi & Sen Lesser, from his F** page.
1/8 pic.twitter.com/bErFMzp1aE
— J. Offir, Ph.D. (@dontwantadothis) October 24, 2024
Sequelae: Covid
“COVID-19 Causes Ciliary Dysfunction as Demonstrated by Human Intranasal Micro-Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging” (letter) (American Journal of Respiratory Cell and Molecular Biology). From 2023. N = 13. ” Our results indicate that subjects with mild but symptomatic COVID-19 exhibit functional abnormalities of the respiratory mucosa, underscoring the importance of mucociliary health in viral illness and disease transmission. … Structural integrity and coordinated movement of cilia are imperative for optimal mucociliary clearance, the primary defense mechanism of the respiratory tract.” • Small sample, but a mechanism I can understand….
Social Norming
“Social Goodness: The Ontology of Social Norms” (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews). “The traditional philosophical question about social norms is: what is a social norm? In Social Goodness, Witt asks a different question: what is the source of social normativity? Alternatively put: what makes social norms binding on us? Witt specifically investigates what she calls social role norms. Teachers ought to teach. Students ought to do their homework. Parents ought to take care of their children. In each case, we have a norm that follows from a social role (teacher, student, parent). Witt argues for three major theses: (nonreductionism) we cannot reduce social role normativity to prudential or moral normativity; (externalism) social norms are binding independently of our attitudes toward them; (the artisanal model) social role normativity is best understood along the lines of artisanal social roles, like being a carpenter. The resulting view is comprehensive, compelling, and original.” • Hospitals shouldn’t kill you, doctors should understand the current pandemic, etc. Rather like Graeber’s every day communism, in fact.
Because they’re not on the left:
i will never understand how alleged leftists in the so-called west can wear a kaffiyeh to SHOW solidarity with palestinians, but not a fuckin’ respirator mask to BE in solidarity with immunocompromised & disabled folks, elders, & others trying to survive covid in their community.
— hey shit-ass, wear a fucking mask! (@DEC0L0NIZE) October 25, 2024
| Wastewater | |
| ★ This week(1) CDC October 21 | Last Week(2) CDC (until next week): |
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| Variants (3) CDC October 10 | ★ Emergency Room Visits(4) CDC October 19 |
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| Hospitalization | |
| ★ New York(5) New York State, data October 24: | National (6) CDC September 28: |
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| Positivity | |
| National(7) Walgreens October 21: | Ohio(8) Cleveland Clinic October 19: |
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| Travelers Data | |
| ★ Positivity(9) CDC October 7: | ★ Variants(10) CDC October 7: |
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| Deaths | |
| Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity (11) CDC October 12: | Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits (12) CDC October 12: |
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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.* very popular. XEC has entered the chat.
(4) (ED) Down.
(5) (Hospitalization: NY) Steadily down.
(6) (Hospitalization: CDC). I see the “everything in greenish pastels” crowd has gotten to this chart.
(7) (Walgreens) A pause.
(8) (Cleveland) Dropping.
(9) (Travelers: Positivity) Down.
(10) (Travelers: Variants). Now XEC
(11) Deaths low, positivity down.
(12) Deaths low, ED down.
Stats Watch
Manufacturing: “United States Durable Goods Orders” (Trading Economics). “New orders for manufactured durable goods in the US decreased by 2.2 billion or 0.8 percent to $284.8 billion in September 2024, following a revised 0.8 percent decline in August and compared with market expectations of a 1 percent fall.”
Manufacturing: “Boeing union members on strike return to picket lines after latest offer voted down” (KIRO). “Aviation analyst Scott Hamilton doesn’t expect the pension to come back during negotiations. ‘I would be shocked if Boeing blinked on that one,” Hamilton said to KIRO Newsradio Thursday. “If they give it to the IAM and the engineers union … the other unions would want it back.’… Boeing did secure loans recently. But they would not help the company if the strike lingers on for a long period of time, Hamilton stated. ‘Even with liquidity of $55 billion sooner or later, you’re going to burn through that at the rate of, you know, a billion and a half a month or whatever,’ Hamilton said. “Quite frankly, if this were to go on indefinitely, Boeing could be at risk of going bankrupt. And nobody wants that.’” And: “‘Over the life of the contract, the labor costs would increase about $1.3 billion — and that’s a four-year contract. They’re losing a billion dollars a month in cash, let alone lost sales,’ Hamilton said.” • So give the workers what they want! Is that so hard?
Manufacturing: “As Machinists strike extends, Boeing is running out of runway” (Dominic Gates, Seattle Times). “Before then, Boeing’s own financial distress would intensify and its already-stressed supply chain could sustain long-term damage. ‘This rejection adds further uncertainty, costs, and recovery delays as the strike approaches day 40,’ Bank of America analyst Ron Epstein wrote in a note to investors Thursday. ‘We anticipate further concessions of wages will be required for a deal to pass.’ But the issue is pensions, not wages. “Boeing’s financial position, outlined in its quarterly earnings report on the day of the vote, is tottering on the verge of a credit downgrade that would increase the cost of borrowing. The company bled $2 billion net in cash during the quarter and its debt rose to $57.7 billion with just $10.5 billion of cash in hand. Chief Financial Officer Brian West said 2025 will also see a net cash outflow. However, Boeing has moved to shore up its finances and survive this cash crunch. The company earlier this month arranged $10 billion in additional credit and a potential sale of stock and stock-related bonds up to a further $25 billion if needed. That funding is enough to cover the cash outflow and the debt maturities falling due, and to provide a cushion of capital needed if the strike is prolonged. Boeing will tap that if needed to stave off a credit downgrade…. Still, Boeing would much prefer to do that stock and bond sale after the strike is finished. Investors would pay more for the stock if they can see some movement toward stability.” And: “A basic Grade 4 mechanic working second shift with two years seniority has base pay currently of $26.50 an hour. The latest offer would bump that up in the first year to $29.68.” ‘These are highly complex, technical, skillful jobs. Why do you pay them just a little bit more than McDonald’s?’ Hamilton asked. While South Carolina is still building 787s, there’ll be no other Boeing planes built until a settlement is reached. However Boeing wants to package it, .” • But–
Manufacturing: “Boeing union to striking workers: ‘Bullying’ each other over strike votes is ‘vile’” (Quartz). “Rachel Sarzynski, a team lead on Boeing’s 777, told the Times that “some people are desperate” and just want to get back to work and get paid again. Union members have received $250 per week from the strike fund after the walkouts entered its third week — a major pay cut for many employees. Sarzynski added that Boeing’s latest offer has ‘absolutely divided people.’ The IAM on Thursday evening seemed to acknowledged that divide, reminding its members that no one ‘deserves to be bullied or disrespected’ because of how they voted on the deal. ‘Bullying’ fellow members, the union added, is ‘unacceptable and vile.’ ‘Each one of us made a choice, using our voice, deciding what was right for our families. That power to choose, the right to choose, is at the core of everything we stand for,’ the IAM said in a statement. ‘Respect. Fairness. A future that we decide, not one handed down to us from corporate boardrooms.’” • Looks like that
Manufacturing: “Why pensions are a hot button issue in the Boeing machinists strike” (KUOW). “Labor markets are competitive, and I think that if you had a company that was willing to do so, you’d find a lot of employees who are attracted to that model, and they say, ‘Company A has a pension. I’ll go there because I really want that.’ I think a company leader might just do it, and if they do so, they’re going to be taking the good employees from Company B and others, and companies may have to follow suit…. there’s a realization among many of those employees in the union that there is some benefit to having a pension plan, and that a lot of the union members probably want it. It’s just difficult. The biggest issue is that while there are pension guarantees outside of the companies themselves– for example, if a company goes bankrupt, there is a pension guarantee company that, in many cases, will take care of the pensions– the idea is that if the company is still in business, they are the ones guaranteeing the pension. And the idea is, if you look at the pension world in general, especially, let’s say state and local and community plans and counties and teachers, etc., many of those plans, most of those plans, are underfunded, and it’s on the hook of the younger generation of employees to fund those pensions. So, it’s a difficult situation. That’s why companies have gone away from it. They don’t want to have to guarantee pensions, and they don’t want to have to administer it. It’s expensive. You have to have an investment staff at a company that manages a pension. Whereas, with a 401(k) or a defined contribution plan, you can ‘outsource it.’”
Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 62 Greed (previous close: 63 Greed) (CNN). One week ago: 74 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Oct 25 at 1:00:32 PM ET.
The Current Cinema
Buster Keaton is dry, very dry:
“Finding a better song to sing” (Richard Murphy, Funding the Future). ” it is my plan over the next year to give up almost all aspects of my work except for that on social media, including this blog.” • He’s giving up his Chair in Accounting Practice at Sheffield University to blog. Greater love hath no man….
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