Active volcano spotted on Venus. The planet’s not dead yet. Space.com

Alligator in the Attic: Building Inspector Shocked to Find 8-ft Beast in Three-Story Home Field & Stream

B-a-a-a-a-d Banks

Fire the Fed Matt Stoller, BIG. Good clean fun. Well worth a read.

Fed’s Yellen expects no new financial crisis in ‘our lifetimes’ Reuters

The stupidest timeline would quite naturally have the stupidest Secretary of the Treasury:

Yes, the clip is worth watching, but put down your coffee.

Fed Blocked Mention of Regulatory Flaws in Silicon Valley Bank Rescue NYT

I Was an S.V.B. Client. I Blame the Venture Capitalists NYT (Re Silc). Well worth a read. A telling detail:

I’ll keep my S.V.B. debit card as a souvenir, partly because the giant arrow logo points in the opposite direction that it’s supposed to go into a card reader — an example of a design that obviously went through no user testing. It’s also a reminder that successful people aren’t always the best decision makers.

ANHD Statement on Signature Bank’s Closure The Association for Neighborhood and Housing Development (timotheus). A well-deserved kick to the prostrate body.

Wall Street banks to deposit $30bn into First Republic FT. This is the bank where the depositors are wealthy lemmings, as opposed to New York real estate lemmings (Signature), or tech bro lemmings (SVB).

Another Chaotic Week for Banks Marks the End of an Era for the Global Economy John Authers, Bloomberg

Financial Panic in the Age of Digital Banking and Social Media RAND

Crypto’s winners and losers after a bank run Politico

Pentagon Mobilized to Support Tech Startups After Bank Failure Defense One

Climate

Brazilian researchers find ‘terrifying’ plastic rocks on remote island Reuters. Look on my works, ye mighty….

Waste pickers collect food waste, help combat climate change AP

Is Climate Change Really Making Fish Bigger? A New Study Says Yes Field & Stream Original.

#COVID19

The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic Katherine Wu, The Atlantic. For some reason, The Atlantic breaks (Furzy Mouse) this story. A preprint, apparently, to come in Nature.

FDA offers radio silence on question of spring Covid boosters, as other countries push ahead STAT

China?

Xi Jinping to visit Vladimir Putin in Russia next week FT

China jobs: Beijing urged to reform vocational education and end discrimination to plug skilled worker gap South China Morning Post

China’s answer to ChatGPT? Baidu shares tumble as Ernie Bot disappoints Reuters

Cops probe whether fire at Chinese billionaire’s NYC pad was set remotely NY Post. Guo Wengui.

Asia-Arctic Diplomacy a Decade Later: What Has Changed? The Diplomat

Commentary: Can Cambodia’s future foreign policy diverge from China? Channel News Asia

More looted Cambodian relics returned from the United States Globe_. Smart move. For once.

India

As Covid cases spike, Centre asks six states to keep a strict vigil Business Standard

Making the Mising brew in Majuli People’s Archive of Rural India

Strike grips Sri Lanka as unions protest IMF bailout Channel News Asia

Syraqistan

Saudi-Iranian Détente Is a Wake-Up Call for America Foreign Policy

China’s Good Offices Foreign Policy

Iran Agrees to Stop Arming Houthis in Yemen as Part of Pact With Saudi Arabia WSJ

European Disunion

A dog day afternoon in French politics as Macron uses ‘nuclear option’ to raise retirement age France24 (Re Silc).

German viper attackers arrested Daily News Hungary. Hmm.

Clashes break out in Greece as thousands protest against train tragedy France24

New Not-So-Cold War

Poland to be 1st NATO member to give Ukraine fighter jets AP

U.S. Reaches Deep Into Its Global Ammunition Stockpiles to Help Ukraine WSJ

Russia Wants a Long War Foreign Affairs. The deck: “The West Needs to Send Ukraine More Arms, More Quickly.” Especially the kind of arms that 16-year-olds pulled off the street can fire with minimal training?

The war exacerbates Ukraine’s population decline new report shows EU Science Hub

Top China and US envoys speak with Ukrainian foreign minister about war’s outlook South China Morning Post

‘Hunting rifles’ — really? China ships assault weapons and body armor to Russia Politico

Russia will recover US drone wreckage from Black Sea if necessary: Kremlin Andalu Agency

When MI6 Betrayed Ukraine’s Resistance to Russia Declassified UK

Far-right Ukrainian World Congress demands Hollywood take “appropriate action” against Top Gun: Maverick WSWS

Biden Administration

Seasoned Russia Envoy Joins Biden’s NSC Foreign Policy. Recommended by Victoria Nuland, so seasoned with what?

Biden’s Italian mystery Axios. No ambassador.

Supply Chain

Unprecedented levels of institutional capital making its way into maritime services Splash 24/7

Tech

The Unpredictable Abilities Emerging From Large AI Models Quanta

Healthcare

Public Health Law Modernization 2.0: Rebalancing Public Health Powers And Individual Liberty In The Age Of COVID-19 Health Affairs

Imperial Collapse Watch

America’s Military Depends on Minerals That China Controls Foreign Policy

The Development and Validation of the Epistemic Vice Scale Review of Philosophy and Psychology (Phil R). From 2021, still germane. From the Abstract: “Epistemic vices have been defined as character traits that interfere with acquiring, maintaining, and transmitting knowledge. Examples of epistemic vice are gullibility and indifference to knowledge. It has been hypothesized that epistemically vicious people are especially susceptible to misinformation and conspiracy theories.” For example, mainstream macro? Droplet theory?

Class Warfare

The Fishing Revolution and the Origins of Capitalism Monthly Review. Interesting!

Bandcamp Workers Form Union: ‘It’s Not Enough to Get Small Wins Alone’ Rolling Stone

A Book and New Documentary Explore the Possibilities of Ink-Making in Urban Environments Colossal. Jackpot-ready!

Antidote du jour (By Foto: Bernd Schwabe in Hannover – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0):

See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.

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This entry was posted in Links on 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.