2:00PM Water Cooler 24.11.2023 | naked capitalism

Dear readers, I am still in the process of rebuilding. This "Water Cooler" is almost entirely about the COVID-19. That way you'll have something to talk about with your family!

Bird of the day:

Home swallow, Herdade da Mitra-Labor, Évora, Évora, Portugal. "Delichon urbicum with Passer domesticus and Turdus merula in the background".

Politics

"Texas companies say banning abortion costs the state about $15 billion a year." [KXAN]. "40 Texas companies and business leaders are joining the fight against Texas' abortion ban, filing a request with the Texas Supreme Court that says 'uncertainty' in the law's medical exemptions is costing the state about $14.5 billion in lost revenue each year. A major effort in this direction''undertaken by Austin-based dating exchange Bumble, which filed its libertelite position in front of the world-renowned arguments in Zurawski v. Texas.... Dozens of other companies have signed the demand, including South by Southwest, Zilker Properties, ATX Television Festival and Central Presbyterian Church. The justification cites a study from the Institute for Women's Policy Research (IWPR), based on which they firmly believe that Texas' abortion ban costs the state about $15 billion annually. They argue that the ban translates to lower earnings for women, greater time costs, and withdrawal from the labor force.

Election 2024

More than a year away!

Democrats stripped down, loyal patients, people seem to be reading themselves''pending post! But I haven't updated it, and there are a lot of updates. So I'll have to do that.-lambert

Transferred my constant remarks about the Democratic Party ("The Democratic Party is a rotting corpse that can't bury itself") to a separate, previously published post, to which I will periodically add material, summarizing it here in the "live" section of the Water Cooler. (Hopefully there will be something from Bourdieu here.) It turns out it's really hard to define the Democratic Party. I think the paragraph that follows is still relevant in 2016, if not earlier:

The Democratic Party is the political expression of the PMC's class power at the foundation of that party (explained in detail by Thomas Frank in Listen, Liberal!).''Hence, the Democratic Party cannot be "improved" any more than the PMC cannot be "improved"; and if the Democratic Party did not exist, the PMC would probably have created it. If the Democratic Party fails to govern, it's because the PMC is incapable of governing. (Of course, in doing so, "PMC" can be used to mean "immigrant class.") And second: all elements of the Party reinforce each other. They, without going into characterizing the relationships between the elements of the Party (ka-ching, but not completely), form a network - Flex Net? Iron Octagon? - of sponsors, suppliers, apparatchiks, apparatchiks, chosen ones, NGOs and various mercenaries with press and intelligence connections. Of course, it should be noted that the PMC's class power both expresses and is limited to other classes; oligarchs and' come to mind.