A blog about societal, cultural, and civilizational collapse, and how to stave it off or survive it. Named after the legendary character "Crazy Eddie" in Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle's "The Mote in God's Eye." Expect news and views about culture, politics, economics, technology, and science fiction.
Greta Thunberg is the face of a global youth-led climate movement.
Congratulations, Greta! Not only are you the Person of the Year, you are the youngest to ever be named for this title. May you and your youthful followers continue to raise people's awareness and prompt action on the climate.
Time bestowed three other titles, Athlete of the Year, Entertainer of the Year, and Guardians of the Year. I plan on posting videos about all of them as the week progresses. Stay tuned.
Happy NobelPrizeDay! I begin this year's observance the same way I did last year, with the winner of the Peace Prize. Watch DW News (Deutsche Welle or German Broadcasting) answer Nobel Peace Prize 2019: Who is Abiy Ahmed?
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed has been announced as the winner of this prestigious award for his work to resolve the border conflict with neighboring Eritrea. Ahmed was up against around 300 nominees. The Norwegian Nobel Committee made the announcement in Oslo. Earlier this week, the Nobel prizes in the fields of Medicine, Physics, Chemistry and Literature were also awarded.
Congratulations to Prime Minister Ahmed and thanks to the Nobel Prize committee to get me to write about East Africa, a region I have generally and probably unjustly ignored.
Follow over the jump for the rest of the laureates.
John Oliver discusses the census, why it matters, and the consequences of an undercount.
Yikes! Unfortunately, none of this is a surprise to me. Other than making it funny, Oliver delivers the same information that Vox did when it explained why the 2020 Census is at risk. That means I have the same reaction, which I'll be a good environmentalist and recycle.
This hits home for a number of reasons, not least of which is that I moonlighted as a census taker in 2000 and Kenneth Prewitt was the head of the Census Bureau then. While I've mentionedseveral timesthatI was aNational Park Ranger and have posted entries about the census several times, this is the first time I've mentioned my last federal government job. It's about time.
On a less personal note, I agree with Vox that this is bad for democracy, bad for understanding the country through data, and potentially bad for immigrants. What good will it do to reform redistricting to reducegerrymandering if the data being used is flawed?
Fortunately, the citizenship question will not be on the census. That's the best news about the census since I wrote about it last in February 2018.
Foreign leaders (Jimmy Fallon, Paul Rudd, James Corden) that were caught making fun of President Trump (Alec Baldwin) at the NATO summit continue their taunting in the cafeteria.
I'll be honest; if it weren't for James Corden as Boris Johnson taping to the "Impeach Me" sign to Alec Baldwin as Trump, I might have not embedded this video because, as funny as it is, it wouldn't have fit the theme.
Weekend Update anchors Colin Jost and Michael Che tackle the week's biggest news, like the House democrats moving forward with impeachment against Donald Trump.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Kate McKinnon) stop by Weekend Update address a reporter's accusation that she hates President Trump and to offer him a prayer.
Kate McKinnon and the writers did a good job of lampooning Pelosi. Just the same, I don't know if I'd those prayers said on my behalf.
That's it for the Sunday entertainment feature. I'll conclude by being a good environmentalist and recycling my closing from two weeks ago: "I like the news better when I can laugh at it. I think my readers do, too. Happy Sunday!"
Forever 21 has been practically synonymous with “fast fashion” and its massive stores have become a common fixture in America’s shopping malls. But the retailer is in trouble, Forever 21 filed for bankruptcy in September 2019. The brand is now closing hundreds of stores, as its clothes become more interchangeable with “cheap” rather than “trendy.”
I'm glad to see Forever 21's brick-and-mortar competitors mentioned more than its online ones. In particular, I don't recall anyone mentioning Amazon, which I find to be a relief. I also appreciated CNBC pointing out how the chain's own errors contributed to their misfortune; that's the case with most of the casualties of the Retail Apocalypse. I also liked that the final expert interviewed pointed out that this will not be the end of Forever 21; it will survive in the U.S. and Latin America while staying out of the way of H&M in Europe and Uniqlo in Asia, although it will continue to compete with both in its home markets.
Some of that is also true of Business Insider, which told much the same story up to the bankruptcy filing in The Rise And Fall Of Forever 21, a video I should have used at the end of September.
At its peak, Forever 21 made $4.4 billion in revenue and was one of the fastest-growing fast fashion empires. Now, the retailer is preparing to file for bankruptcy after alienating its core customers and struggling to keep up with the rise of e-commerce. As one of the largest tenants of American malls, a large-scale shutdown of Forever 21's stores could exacerbate the ongoing retail apocalypse.
Business Insider's video is shorter and snappier. It also mentioned both the retail apocalypse and Forever 21's online competitors, which CNBC ignored. I think viewers should watch both videos to get a fuller account of the the chain's early success and later failure. It's important to learn from both.
After Speaker Pelosi's press conference where she laid out the reasons Democrats must press ahead with impeachment, she got serious while taking questions from reporters.
The yield curve was once just a wonky graph for academics and policymakers. But in recent years it has become a way to forecast looming recessions. The curve has helped predict every recession over the past 50 years. That means the curve accurately predicted even largely unforeseen downturns like the dot-com bubble of 2001 and the Great Recession in 2007.
As a result, news of yield curve inversions can now send markets tumbling. Policymakers keep a close eye on even small changes in the curve’s composition.
So how did this simple graph showing U.S. Treasury bond interest rates grow into one of the most reliable recession indicators we have? And what does a yield curve inversion really mean?
While it's possible that "it's different this time," I doubt it. I still think the inverted yield curve earlier this year signals an oncoming recession. However, I no longer have confidence in my prediction of when that will happen.
"I've been bearish and on recession watch since December 2017 and still stand behind the prediction I made in Ten years ago, we were partying like it was 1929. Are we about to do it again?...'I'm moving my recession call to between July and December 2019.'" If that happens, it will be closer to December than July, which is only a month away, but I will not revise my forecast until October at the earliest. I'm even more confident that a recession is coming, even if it takes a bit longer than I expect.
The U.S. is not currently in recession and I'm 99% confident that it will not enter one by the end of the year. The Federal Reserve has managed to forestall it through interest rate cuts before any recession could begin. Clever of them. However, that's not going to work forever. Therefore, I'm kicking my forecast six months down the road with the next recession starting during the first half of 2020 and more likely during the second quarter than the first. That would mean any annoucement of it starting would be within a month before the election. Perfect timing.
I don't think Kamala Harris is leaving until after she faceplants in Iowa. Also, as much as you might dislike Mayor Pete, who tacked left and then back to the center, he's essentially tied with Harris nationwide and well ahead of her in Iowa. He also has a lot of money behind him. I think he'll be in the contest until Super Tuesday, at least. Booker should last until South Carolina and Klobuchar until New Hampshire.
This was in response to Nebris making his wishes known.
I suspect Harris is next. She shut all her offices in New Hampshire and is going all in on Iowa. I expect her to eat shit there and that will be that.
While I was right that Steve Bullock was one of the next two to leave, both Nebris and I were wrong that Harris would last until Iowa, although Nebris was closer to reality when he thought she would be "next." As CBS News reported yesterday, Senator Kamala Harris drops out of 2020 presidential race.
CBSN political reporter Caitlin Huey-Burns joins CBSN's "Red & Blue" to discuss Senator Kamala Harris ending her presidential bid and its impact on the 2020 Democratic race.
Despite all the reporting from Politico and the New York Times about disarray in Harris's campaign, she had qualified for the December debate. I fully expected her to be on the stage. That's not going to happen, much to my surprise. So far, candidates who qualified for debates have continued their campaigns.
I wasn't the only one surprised by Harris's decision. FiveThirtyEight had the same reaction in their emergency Politics Podcast Harris Drops Out.
The crew reacts to Sen. Kamala Harris's decision to drop out of the Democratic primary.
Despite the short time between the announcement and the recording, the four panelists managed a fairly comprehensive analysis of the situation, especially since they were able to build on what Harris should be thankful for — not much other than the support of her husband. Now that she's dropped out, she can be thankful for all the supportive statements from her fellow candidates included in the CBS News clip I embedded above. That's small consolation for her being the most major candidate to have dropped out so far.
As I have done with all the other candidates to have left the campaign, I will retire all of her recipes and memes. Follow over the jump.
National Day of Giving encourages giving back. It takes place the Tuesday after Thanksgiving.
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Quite simply, take advantage of all the holiday deals to add to your charitable giving. Combined with your family, friends, local and national organizations and through the power of social media, Day of Giving can become a tradition worth passing on.
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I wrote "Now to see if my pick of Julian Castro drops out before or after Steve Bullock and Michael Bennet. My readers and I should find out shortly after the November 13 deadline for the next debate" just above the jump cut in Bye-bye Beto as O'Rourke drops out. I repeated my prediction in the comments to Au revoir Tim Ryan as Ohio Representative retires from race. "As for who's next, I still think it will be one of Bennet, Bullock, or Castro. At least one of them will drop out after they fail to make the next debate." I was close but not correct, as Joe Sestak suspended his campaign before any of them. All was not lost, as Steve Bullock dropped out this morning. Newsy reported on both candidates leaving the contest in Two Democratic presidential candidates drop out.
Former U.S. representative from Pennsylvania Joe Sestak and Gov. Steve Bullock of Montana have announced they are withdrawing from the race.
The field of Democratic candidates seeking the White House has narrowed, with two candidates dropping out of the race.
Neither FiveThirtyEight nor I picked Sestak as one of the first nine to drop out, but they picked Bullock to do so and they keep looking good, as only Michael Bennet, who was the last one picked in FiveThirtyEight's dropout draft, remains. Eight down, one to go from the dropout draft.
As I have with all the rest of the candidates who have fallen in this cycle's version of the Hungry For Power Games, I'm quoting the relevant passage from that article.
nrakich: OK, I’m going to go with the easy pick, then (thanks, Geoffrey!): Montana Gov. Steve Bullock.
sarahf: Ahh!! Stole my pick.
nrakich: Bullock will continue to face a lot of pressure from party elders (and even in his Twitter replies!) to switch to the Senate race.
He’s similar to Hickenlooper in that regard, although frankly I think Democrats’ chances in Colorado’s Senate race don’t change that much if they nominate Hickenlooper vs. someone else. Whereas in Montana, Bullock is legitimately the only candidate who can probably put that Senate seat in play.
Now, like Hickenlooper, Bullock has denied any interest in the Senate.
But maybe, if he doesn’t make the September or October debates, that will change.
He is term-limited as governor, so the alternative is basically to go home and retire.
geoffrey.skelley: But unlike Hickenlooper, Bullock would probably enter a Senate general election in Montana as a clear underdog against Republican Sen. Steve Daines. The state did reelect Democratic Sen. Jon Tester last year, but Tester was an incumbent and it was a favorable environment for a Democrat. And even still, it was close! Bullock probably wouldn’t have as favorable as national environment working in his favor.
