2:00PM Water Cooler 9/5/2024 | naked capitalism

Sep 6, 2024

By Lambert Strether of Corrente

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Readers, I have a post to finish, but today was eventful, and so I’m going to put up some items here, finish my post, and then return here and do some backfilling. Hopefully there’s enough here to get you going. If not, talk amongst yourselves! –lambert

Bird Song of the Day

Gray Catbird, Shindagin Hollow SF–Bald Hill School Rd., Tompkins, New York, United States. Four minutes of catbird!

In Case You Might Miss…

  1. Lichtman opines: It’s Kamala.
  2. RussiaGate II.
  3. Commercial real estate woes.
  4. Keith Haring.

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

Trump Assassination Attempt

“Sen. Hawley: Most Of The Agents On The Trump Detail At Butler Rally Were Homeland Security, Trained By A Webinar” [RealClearPolitics]. • Reading between the lines, the case for LIHOP. Commentary:

Odd, that!

2024

Less than one hundred days to go!

Friday’s RCP Poll Averages:

The good news for Trump is that Kamala’s post-convention “bounce” seems to have been slight. The good news for Kamala is Trump’s continued deterioration in North Carolina, plus taking a slight lead in Pennsylvania. Remember, however, that all the fluctuations — in fact, all the leads, top to bottom — are within the margin of error.

“Historian who accurately predicted 9 of last 10 presidential elections makes his 2024 pick” [USA Today]. “Allan Lichtman, the historian who correctly predicted the outcome of nine out of the ten most recent presidential elections, has made his guess on who will reclaim the White House this year. Spoiler alert: it’s Vice President Kamala Harris. Lichtman said in a video, [clickbait] first reported by The New York Times, that he based his prediction on thirteen keys or ‘big picture true false questions that tap into the strength and performance of the White House Party.’” • See here for Lichtman’s prediction system, which goes all the way back to 1860. Here is the chart for this year:

More: “‘Foreign policy is tricky, and these keys could flip,’ he said in the video. ‘The Biden administration is deeply invested in the war in Gaza, which is a humanitarian disaster with no end in sight. But even if both foreign policy keys flipped false, that would mean that there were only five negative keys, which would not be enough for Donald Trump to regain the White House.’” • One wonders whether debacles in both Gaza and Ukraine would affect the results of Lichtman’s prediction sustem. Dunno about an incumbent seeking re-election. Isn’t that false?

“Is Kamala Harris leading Donald Trump in the presidential race?” [Brookings Institution]. “Averages of multiple polls tend to minimize the impact of individual erroneous polls and locate the most probable course of public sentiment. There are two different ways of constructing averages of multiple polls. One is simple: take all the polls on a race (national or a specific state) and determine the average of the results they report for each candidate. The other is more complicated: use standards of quality based on the prior performance of individual polling organizations as well as the sample size and timing to determine the weight that a specific poll receives. In principle, polls conducted by organizations that have been accurate in the past, use large samples, and have been released recently will receive a greater weight than those that score lower on one or more of these dimensions. A well-known example of the first, simpler method is provided by RealClearPolitics (RCP); of the second, more complex method, by FiveThirtyEight (538).” • I like simple, dance with the one that brung ya for me: RCP. That said, I respect Silver as a pundit, but regard the math stuff as veneer; no different from OGs Larry Sabato and the Cook Report.

The Debate (September 10)

“Trump and Harris campaigns agree to rules for ABC debate” [NBC]. “The Sept. 10 event in Philadelphia will use the same rules and format as the June debate between Trump and President Joe Biden. Candidate microphones will be live only for the candidate whose turn it is to speak.” • This is good for Trump, who will not be tempted to interrupt his enemy when they’re making a mistake. And it’s bad for Kamala, because she does tend to blather on.

Kamala (D): One of these sentences is not like the other:

We have (to my mind) correctly “working class” and “middle class” in the first sentence. In the second sentence, “working class” has been forgotten (or erased). Typical!

Kamala (D): Who needs policy when you’ve got “joy”:

Kamala (D): “The Turnout Debate” [Robert Kuttner, The American Prospect]. “mobilizing low-propensity voters will indeed be key to a Democratic victory in 2024. We don’t yet know whether all the energy and enthusiasm on display at the convention will trickle down to motivating actual voters. We do know that, other things being equal, there is more of a potential upside among low-propensity Democratic voters than among their Republican counterparts. We also know that the excitement at the convention is a great motivator for the organizers who do the actual work of persuading people to register and then to vote. And we know that the Democratic grassroots registration and get-out-the-vote infrastructure is better than its MAGA counterpart. Of course, we won’t know what difference this will make in practice until much later in the fall, when we start to see more registration statistics and when we get reports on vote-by-mail and on-the-ground organizing. This will begin to show up in the polls only slowly. All of this knowledge is far from conducive to sound sleep, and it should motivate Democrats to work as never before. But it’s far too early to be panicking.”

Kamala (D): “That photo of people wearing ‘Nebraska Walz’s for Trump’ shirts? They’re distant cousins” [Associated Press]. • Families, I’m tellin ya….

< a>Trump (R): “Two RT Employees Indicted for Covertly Funding and Directing U.S. Company that Published Thousands of Videos in Furtherance of Russian Interests” (press release) [Office of Public Affairs, Department of Justice]. Aren’t we paying the Censorship Industrial Complex a lot of money to prevent this sort of thing? Anyhow: “The Justice Department has charged two employees of RT, a Russian state-controlled media outlet, in a $10 million scheme to create and distribute content to U.S. audiences with hidden Russian government messaging,’ said Attorney General Merrick B. Garland. ‘The Justice Department will not tolerate attempts by an authoritarian regime to exploit our country’s free exchange of ideas in order to covertly further its own propaganda efforts, and our investigation into this matter remains ongoing.’ ‘Our approach to combating foreign malign influence is actor-driven, exposing the hidden hand of adversaries pulling strings of influence from behind the curtain,’ said Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco. ‘As alleged in today’s indictment, Russian state broadcaster RT and its employees, including the charged defendants, co-opted online commentators by funneling them nearly $10 million to pump pro-Russia propaganda and disinformation across social media to U.S. audiences. The Department will not tolerate foreign efforts to illegally manipulate American public opinion by sowing discord and division.’ ‘Covert attempts to sow division and trick Americans into unwittingly consuming foreign propaganda represents attacks on our democracy,’ said FBI Director Christopher A. Wray.” • The rhetoric seems a little over-heated (helpfully underlined); can they possibly believe that they’re saying? Anyhow, it’s good to have the sources of “division” identified at last. And now do Israel and The Lobby.

Trump (R): “Right-wing influencers were duped to work for covert Russian operation, US says” [Associated Press]. “An indictment filed Wednesday alleges a media company linked to six conservative influencers — including well-known personalities Tim Pool, Dave Rubin and Benny Johnson — was secretly funded by Russian state media employees to churn out English-language videos that were ‘often consistent’ [whatever that means] with the Kremlin’s ‘interest in amplifying U.S. domestic divisions [whatever that means] in order to weaken U.S. opposition’ to Russian interests, like its war in Ukraine. In addition to marking the third straight presidential election in which U.S. authorities have unveiled politically charged details about Russia’s attempted interference in U.S. politics, an indictment indicates how Moscow may be attempting to capitalize on the skyrocketing popularity of right-wing podcasters, livestreamers and other content creators who have found successful careers on social media in the years since Trump was in office. The U.S. Justice Department doesn’t allege any wrongdoing by the influencers, some of whom it says were given false information about the source of the company’s funding.” • No doubt the charges of wrongdoing will come soon enough.

Trump (R): “Donald Trump is deeply threatened by Kamala Harris – and desperately flailing” [Sidney Blumenthal, Guardian]. ” Losing to Harris would be the extinction of his virility. She compounds his existential crisis.” • I guess this is where the “joy” comes from? What is wrong with these people…. (Blumenthal is a former senior adviser to both Bill and Hillary Clinton.)

Stein (G): I’m so old I remember when single payer was actually a campaign issue:

Asking for my vote!

PA: “Biden to Block US Steel Sale in Bid for Western PA – Electric Battery Workers Face Union Busting as Kamala Visits – 1,000 Battery Workers Unionize” [Payday Report]. “As Payday Report went to press, news reports leaked that the Biden Administration intended to block the sale of Pittsburgh-based US Steel to the Japanese company Nippon Steel. The Steelworkers union, based in Pittsburgh, has long advocated blocking the sale. They want the company to be sold to Cleveland Cliffs, with whom the union already has a relationship. When Biden previewed the blockage here at a Labor Day event in Pittsburgh, he received thunderous applause and much positive press coverage in the region. … Folks, unions are going to be crucial to winning in Western Pennsylvania. They represent 1 in 5 voters, which is why Kamala Harris and Tim Walz plan to come to Pittsburgh once or twice a week until election day. Payday hopes to cover them and how union members and racial justice groups are responding here in Western PA.”

Realignment and Legitimacy

“I Found the Antidote to American Polarization at the Minnesota State Fair” [InsideHook]. Seeing a photo of a ginormous crowd, none masked. Hope none of ’em breathed in any H5N1-laden aerosols from a milking operation. More: “t’s said that, in the U.S., we’re always in an election year. Here in Minnesota, as in every other state in the country, we have a tendency to succumb to the unfair labels that are plastered on our own neighbors in this endless red-blue dichotomy. If you live in Beltrami Country, which favored Trump in 2020, you may see Hennepin County through the blue lens that it’s been given by our never-ending political coverage. If you live in Blue Earth County, which favored Biden in 2020, you may see neighboring Waseca County in a red tint. Thankfully, we have the Minnesota State Fair, which softens and dissolves these labels like a piping hot Sweet Martha’s cookie dipped in a cup of ice-cold, all-you-can-drink milk. I’ve been to Fergus Falls, a city of 14,000 across the border from North Dakota, probably once in my entire life, but I cheered on Dane Mouser, a resident of that city, who won this year’s youth edition of the giant pumpkin competition. Does his family’s politics align with mine? That question never crossed my mind, as I was too busy considering how big of a candle you’d need for a 774-pound jack-o’-lantern. My grandparents are from a small farm community called Bird Island (population 989), which is peppered with plenty of Trump signs every time I visit, but that didn’t stop any Harris supporters from ogling at the incredible showing from that one-stoplight town in the Largest Sugar Beet contest: Dale Prokosch, Connor Elfering and Kya Elfering swept second, third and fourth place.” • No Russkies!

“Why Men Are Drifting to the Far Right” [Rachel Kleinfeld, Persuasion]. “While much has been written on the role of race in recent elections, gender is playing a crucial and different role. White men formed Trump’s core support in 2016, but by 2020, Trump polled 12 points better with black men than black women, winning 18% of the black male vote. People who care about democracy could read these numbers and conclude that they should simply double down on getting women to vote. But giving up on half of one’s country is not good civics—nor is it smart electoral math….. The problem is not that men are natural crusaders for authoritarian populists. In fact, American men are much more likely to be politically apathetic, and most young men are better characterized as confused and drifting. The problem is that anti-democratic and violent forces are trying to weaponize that aimlessness. Politics is coming into most men’s lives subtly. They look for belonging, purpose, and advice, and find a mix of grifters, political hacks, and violent extremists who lead them down an ugly road. And few people are fighting back. Popular culture focuses on Elon Musk, Davos CEOs, and the other men flourishing at the top of society’s heap. But that’s not where the majority of men exist. Men with only a high school diploma typically earned $1,017 a week in today’s dollars in 1979; now they earn $881. More than one in ten men in their prime aren’t working at all.” • Yikes, and yikes.

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 (dashboard); 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, 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!

Airborne Transmission

“Indoor air monitoring goes to school” [Chemical and Engineering News]. How it started: “[I]t wasn’t until the day after the US ended its COVID-19 public health emergency in May 2023 [ha ha] that the CDC provided a precise ventilation target of five air changes per hour in any occupied space. For schools to meet this target, the air in every classroom would need to be completely refreshed every 12 min. In Denver, Hernandez says, ‘none of these schools could do that.’” How it’s going: “In Colorado and Boston, collaborations between scientists and school districts that helped get students safely back to school at the height of the pandemic have continued and expanded. The indoor air monitoring programs that begun during the pandemic are now ensuring that kids headed back this fall are breathing clean air in homeroom.” Two cities… And: “With hundreds of schools now actively monitoring indoor air quality, it is perhaps surprising that it took a global pandemic to get air sensors into classrooms. The onus of monitoring and regulating the air pollutants inside buildings has always fallen to building managers. The US Environmental Protection Agency ‘doesn’t have broad responsibility for monitoring indoor air or ensuring its quality in the same way we are authorized for ambient air,’ says Vito Ilacqua, acting director of the agency’s Center for Scientific Analysis. In other words, there is no Clean Air Act for indoor spaces.” • Sigh.

“Are chronic absenteeism interventions working?” [K-12 Dive]. “About one-quarter (23%) of school districts surveyed said none of the strategies they put in place to combat chronic absenteeism have been particularly effective, according to an analysis of data published Tuesday by Rand Corporation and the Center on Reinventing Public Education. One explanation, according to researchers’ interviews with district leaders, is a cultural shift occurring since COVID-19-related school building closures, in which students and families view school attendance as optional and less important.” • Or maybe — work with me, here — the kids are just sick all the time.

Airborne Transmission: Covid

Transmission: Covid

“Superspreading, overdispersion and their implications in the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis of the literature” [BMC Public Health]. From 2023, highly germane. From the Abtract: “A recurrent feature of infectious diseases is the observation that different individuals show different levels of secondary transmission. This inter-individual variation in transmission potential is often quantified by the dispersion parameter k. Low values of k indicate a high degree of variability and a greater probability of superspreading events. Understanding k for COVID-19 across contexts can assist policy makers prepare for future pandemics…. Our compilation of k estimates for subgroups classified according to different criteria showed that superspreading occurs across all age groups and in a wide variety of settings. … [A]symptomatic carriers can be particularly hazardous, as they showed more heterogeneous transmission patterns and can thus also contribute to superspreading. Going forward, a common approach in early pandemic response measures is the so-called backward tracing of cases, recommended by one study, in which not only possible contacts of the infected individual are notified, but also the origin of infection is traced back to the index case. This method helps to identify clusters and was largely adopted by Japan in the first wave of infections. Cluster based approaches were shown to be effective in preventing superspreading events and help to terminate transmission chains, where done very promptly. In the case of COVID-19, we found one modelling study comparing backward and forward tracing methods. It suggested that primary cases identified by backward tracing may generate 3-10 times more infections than those identified by forward tracing. The proportion of secondary cases thereby averted was estimated to two to threefold and effectively contributed to outbreak control. These findings are a reminder, that early rapid control efforts can be pivotal even in pathogens with high levels of infectiousness.” • Well, so much for that.

Maskstravaganza

“Study suggests COVID face masks don’t impair most social interaction” (press release) [University of Kansas]. “A new study just published in Journal of Applied Social Psychology debunks the idea that wearing a mask to slow the spread of disease damages most everyday social exchanges…. Reporting results from an experiment with 250 university students carried out in 2012 — before masks became fodder for political and cultural angst — psychology researchers based at the University of Kansas and Wellesley College found mask wearing ‘had no effect on the ease, authenticity, friendliness of the conversation, mood, discomfort or interestingness’ of interactions between students.” • Take that smile Nazis!

“A smart mask for exhaled breath condensate harvesting and analysis” [Science]. “Here, we introduce EBCare, a mask-based device for real-time in situ monitoring of [Exhaled breath condensate (EBC)] biomarkers. Using a tandem cooling strategy, automated microfluidics, highly selective electrochemical biosensors, and a wireless reading circuit, EBCare enables continuous multimodal monitoring of EBC analytes across real-life indoor and outdoor activities. We validated EBCare’s usability in assessing metabolic conditions and respiratory airway inflammation in healthy participants, patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease or asthma, and patients after COVID-19 infection.” • Great. How about when we inhale? Can we get that, too?

Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions

“Did the pandemic ruin sex? Scientists say it could constitute a health crisis” [Salon]. “Yet, as [Dr. Liam Wignall, a lecturer in psychology at Bournemouth University] clarified, ‘when participants were asked to indicate which sexual behaviors they engaged in before lockdown and then subsequently during lockdown, the number of people engaging in the behaviors decreased for all behaviors. The biggest reduction was sexual intercourse with somebody else [not your partner]’ – the amount of people doing this dropped by 88%. This is tentative evidence that generally people were following lockdown measures, at least when sex is concerned.” • Perhaps this is the source of all the angst (particularly on the conservative side of the house, where IIRC, Grindr observed peak usage during the Republican National Convention)?

Sequelae: Covid

“Living with Long COVID: What it’s Like to be Diagnosed with the Debilitating Disease” [AARP]. “Although the dangers of acute COVID ­infection may have ebbed for many, the ­reality of long COVID is coming into view. Of those who contracted COVID-19 within the past four years, 10 to 20 percent have experienced long COVID. ‘With every new case of acute COVID [the initial phase of infection when diagnosed or symptoms first appear], there is risk for developing long COVID,’ says Caitlin McAuley, D.O., a family physician at the Keck COVID Recovery Clinic in Los Angeles. She’s had patients who developed long COVID fully recover, get reinfected several times with no lingering effects, then develop another case that leads to a new bout of long COVID. She’s also seen patients who got COVID twice with no lingering effects, and the third time they ended up with prolonged symptoms.” • Mainstreamed at last…

Elite Maleficence

Cute!

TABLE 1: Daily Covid Charts

Wastewater
This week[1] CDC August 26: Last Week[2] CDC (until next week):

Variants [3] CDC August 31 Emergency Room Visits[4] CDC August 24

Hospitalization
New York[5] New York State, data August 30: National [6] CDC August 10:

Positivity
National[7] Walgreens September 3: Ohio[8] Cleveland Clinic August 24:

Travelers Data
Positivity[9] CDC August 12: Variants[10] CDC August 12:

Deaths
Weekly Deaths vs. % Positivity [11]CDC August 24: Weekly Deaths vs. ED Visits [12]CDC August 24:

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) This week’s wastewater map, with hot spots annotated. Keeps spreading.

[2] (CDC) Last week’s wastewater map.

[3] (CDC Variants) KP.* very popular. XDV.1 flat.

[4] (ED) Down, but worth noting that Emergency Department use is now on a par with the first wave, in 2020.

[5] (Hospitalization: NY) Flat, that is, no longer down.

[6] (Hospitalization: CDC). The visualization suppresses what is, in percentage terms, a significant increase.

[7] (Walgreens) Big drop, but all those white states showing no change: Labor Day weekend reporting issues?

[8] (Cleveland) Dropping.

[9] (Travelers: Positivity) Down. Those sh*theads at CDC have changed the chart so that it doesn’t even run back to 1/21/23, as it used to, but now starts 1/1/24. There’s also no way to adjust the time range. CDC really doesn’t want you to be able to take a historical view of the pandemic, or compare one surge to another. In an any case, that’s why the shape of the curve has changed.

[10] (Travelers: Variants) What the heck is LB.1?

[11] Deaths low, but positivity up. If the United States is like Canada, deaths are several undercounted:

[12] Deaths low, ED up.

Stats Watch

Employment Situation: “United States Challenger Job Cuts” [Trading Economics]. “US employers announced 75,891 job cuts in August 2024, the most in five months, and the most for the month since 2009 when excluding the pandemic-induced crash in 2020. The result was in line with other key releases in reflecting the softening of the US labor market, strengthening the rhetoric for doves in the FOMC. Among different sectors, tech companies announced the most cuts….”

Employment Situation: “United States Initial Jobless Claims” [Trading Economics]. “The number of people claiming unemployment benefits in the US dropped by 5,000 from the previous week to 227,000 on the period ending August 31st, below market expectations of 230,000, and reaching a new 7-week low.”

Employment Situation: “United States ADP Employment Change” [Trading Economics]. “Private businesses in the US added 99K workers to their payrolls in August 2024, the lowest number since January 2021, following a downwardly revised 111K in July and well below forecasts of 145K. Figures showed the labor market continued to cool for the fifth straight month while wage growth was stable.”

Tech: “Intel’s Money Woes Throw Biden Team’s Chip Strategy Into Turmoil” [Bloomberg]. “The Biden-Harris administration’s big bet on Intel Corp. to lead a US chipmaking renaissance is in grave trouble as a result of the company’s mounting financial struggles, creating a potentially damaging setback for the country’s most ambitious industrial policy in decades. Five months after the president traveled to Arizona to unveil a potential $20 billion package of incentives alongside Chief Executive Officer Pat Gelsinger, there are growing questions around when — or if — Intel will get its hands on that money. Intel’s woes also may jeopardize the government’s ability to reach its policy goals, which include establishing a secure supply of cutting-edge chips for the Pentagon and making a fifth of the world’s advanced processors by 2030. Intel is mired in a sales slump worse than anticipated and hemorrhaging cash, forcing its board to consider increasingly drastic actions — including possibly splitting off its manufacturing division or paring back global factory plans, Bloomberg reported last week. That threatens to further complicate its quest for government funding, at a time when Intel desperately needs the help. The Silicon Valley company is supposed to receive $8.5 billion in grants and $11 billion in loans from the 2022 Chips and Science Act, but only if the chipmaker meets key milestones — and after significant due diligence. That process, which applies to all Chips Act winners, has been clear from the outset, and aims to ensure that companies only get taxpayer dollars once they’ve actually delivered on their promises. Intel, like other potential recipients, hasn’t received any money yet. In ongoing negotiations, Intel has grown frustrated with what it sees as the government dragging its feet and has urged officials to release funding faster….” • Who’s running Intel? Zelensky?

Entertainment: “Leaked Disney Data Reveals Financial and Strategy Secrets” [Wall Street Journal]. “A spreadsheet exposed in the leak appears to detail revenue generated from Genie+, the premium park pass launched in 2021. The pass is a signature achievement of Disney’s theme park division chief, and the data underscores how vital Genie+ has become to the financial performance of that unit. The file indicates that the passes generated more than $724 million in pretax revenue between October 2021 and June 2024 at Walt Disney World alone.” • Looks like some customers felt scammed by Genie+, so Disney got rid of it in favor of a thing called Lighting Lane. I wonder what its lifespan will be? Incentives have not changed… And from the horrid press release: “We deeply value the trust families place in Disney to create lasting memories….” Dear Lord. Why would we need Disney to create “lasting memories”?

Real Estate: “Creative destruction rips through US commercial property” [Financial Times]. “The financial train wreck laying waste to parts of the market for big office buildings in some of America’s largest cities is showing no signs of abating, even as the US economy as a whole continues to be chugging along just fine. The questions remain as to why this is happening and whether the bottom has been reached. The detritus is strewn everywhere…. Part of the problem for owners of these buildings, and their lenders, is the fundamental change in the nature of work, post-pandemic. Between high-speed internet access, video calls and working-from-home privileges, people aren’t going to an office to work as often as before — although that partly depends on the city, with Miami and New York City having much higher levels of employees back in the office compared with San Francisco and Los Angeles. Less office space is now needed. ‘The vacancy rates are the highest I’ve ever seen,’ Flexner said. It does seem bleak, and there are genuine negative knock-on effects for restaurants, retail stores and other businesses that depend on the foot traffic and commerce generated by a bustling office complex…. As for these struggling commercial office towers, Schumpeter’s logic is likely to prove true. [Tom Flexner, a former vice-chair at Citigroup] said many of these buildings would be razed, taken down to the raw land, at great cost, and then would rise again as residential properties or new commercial properties designed to meet the demands of the evolving office culture. Until then, the bloodbath will continue and the pain will be considerable for both equity and debtholders.”

Real Estate: “Frenzy over Venezuelan gang in Aurora reaches crescendo, fueled by conflicting information and politics” [Denver Post]. “The mayor’s claim of a gang takeover is disputed by other city officials, who say the longstanding disarray and poor conditions at the apartment buildings were the fault of poor oversight by CBZ Management — not because of criminal acts by Tren de Aragua members. ‘There’s this hysteria that we apparently have a gang problem, but what we have is a slumlord problem in the city of Aurora,’ City Councilwoman Alison Coombs said.”

Today’s Fear & Greed Index: 47 Neutral (previous close: 52 Neutral) [CNN]. One week ago: 60 (Greed). (0 is Extreme Fear; 100 is Extreme Greed). Last updated Sep 5 at 1:10:04 PM ET.

Gallery

“The ancient art of Keith Haring” [The Easel]. Worth reading in full. This caught my eye: “More interesting, I think, are the raw reactions from the majority of people who were experiencing Haring’s work—that is, the people who stumbled upon Haring’s babies and dogs and weird creatures and UFOs on the walls of New York City. [Haring biographer Brad] Gooch quotes actress and performance artist Ann Magnuson as saying, ‘Keith’s subway panels greeted you like welcome mats at each downtown stop. Personalized petroglyphs that spelled relief from the piss-soaked wreckage of the Lower East Side.’ Haring himself was often amazed that so few people messed with or defaced his drawings, as happened with so much of the public art and graffiti of the time. Haring noted that ‘the drawings seemed to have this protective power that prevented people from destroying them.’ This power, according to Haring, was a ‘protective nimbus’ that had something to do with the images being a form of ‘primitive code.’” • I wonder if the same is true of Banksy?

Book Nook

“Just say it, Henry” [London Review of Books]. The prefaces of Henry James. “People who are impatient with the late James may think his view of human reality is over-refined and unreal. It isn’t. It is a version of the world in which we live… [W]e occupy a delicate weave of emotions and beliefs that half beguiles us into thinking of ourselves as its centre, until something is seen or something happens which tells us, irrefutably, that we are not. We live in a state of bewilderment, even though we do not want to acknowledge it, and indeed may not always know it. James’s late style evolved along with this multiplex vision of human reality, and it is not so much a vehicle for that vision as its enabling condition. That fusion of style and content was a great event in the literary history of the early 20th century…. The best moments in the prefaces are not just about the fiction but share with the later fiction a fascination with the dirty things that they are trying not to talk about, or from which they may even be flinching or recoiling.” • Hence the inverted commas, the adverbs, the endless circumlocutions….

strong>Guillotine Watch

“Tuition: $9,400. Dorm Room Interior Designer: $10,000?” [New York Times]. “Today, a wave of undergraduates — especially in the southern states — are hiring interior designers to completely makeover their dorm rooms at a cost of thousands of dollars per room…. “We’re moving away from Ikea, and getting the opposite of fast furniture,” said Ginger Curtis, the founder of Urbanology Designs, a high-end Dallas-based interior design space that works with students preparing to go to college. She said she can help students on a budget for $7,000 to $8,000, though the costs can grow much higher. Depending on the amount students (or really, their parents) are willing to spend, Ms. Curtis will recommend custom fabrics for the curtains, monogrammed pillows, linens, a couch and coffee table, headboard and dust ruffles; handmade murals or removable wallpaper; luxury light fixtures to replace fluorescent lights; and real wood hutches, shelves and cabinets custom-made to fit the room.” • I hate this timeline.

Class Warfare

“Ultra-Rich Families Set to Control $9.5 Trillion by 2030, Deloitte Says” [News of the Wired

I have yet to become wired today.

Contact information for plants: Readers, feel free to contact me at lambert [UNDERSCORE] strether [DOT] corrente [AT] yahoo [DOT] com, to (a) find out how to send me a check if you are allergic to PayPal and (b) to find out how to send me images of plants. Vegetables are fine! Fungi, lichen, and coral are deemed to be honorary plants! If you want your handle to appear as a credit, please place it at the start of your mail in parentheses: (thus). Otherwise, I will anonymize by using your initials. See the previous Water Cooler (with plant)

MarkT writes: “Another winter walkd among the giant tree ferns in Akatarawa Forest Park, Wellington, New Zealand.”

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