Capitalism on Addiction
March 27, 2020
“Hell is truth seen too late.” (This is the quote we thought of when we saw this article: “The Coronavirus Is the Worst Intelligence Failure in U.S. History.” What a powerful and interesting statement-headline.)
“Leisure is the mother of Philosophy.” (It’s impossible to reflect on the world and life and write about such matters without the luxury of leisure time and knowing one won’t go hungry putting thoughts to pen to paper.)
― Thomas Hobbes
Mario Tama via Getty Images
The Hobbesian Trap: A Food Stocking War of Everyone Against Everyone
The world is dealing with the healthcare crisis inflicted by Covid-19; now another cause for concern is unfolding: food hoarding. Supplies are currently ample, but accompanying the public’s continued panic buying and stocking up are logistical hurdles making it harder to get products where they need to be. And governments are starting to show signs of protectionism, which the UN warns could provoke global food shortages.
Countries have become increasingly dependent on international trade for their domestic food supplies. For some commodities, precious few countries make up the bulk of exportable supplies. Disruptions to those shipments would have major global ramifications.
Veteran agricultural trader Ann Berg advises that as many governments have employed extreme measures — setting curfews, limiting crowd sizes, allowing people to venture out only for essentials — those moves could spill over to food policy. “You could see wartime rationing, price controls and domestic stockpiling,” she said.
Kazakhstan is one of the world’s biggest shippers of wheat flour. This week it banned exports of that product and others, including carrots, sugar and potatoes. It had already stopped exporting food staples like buckwheat and onions. Cutting off wheat-flour shipments could imperil countries that rely on those supplies to make bread. Likewise Vietnam, a key supplier of rice to the Philippines, has temporarily suspended new rice export contracts. Serbia has stopped exporting its sunflower oil and other goods.
Experts say frenzied shopping coupled with protectionist policies leads to higher food prices, some of which is already happening. Wheat futures in Chicago, the global benchmark, climbed more than 8 percent this month as consumers buy up flour. US wholesale beef shot up to its highest since 2015, and egg prices are climbing.
Socialists Become Drug Dealing Capitalists: Venezuela & The New Season Of ‘Narcos
- On Thursday the Justice Department unsealed a series of criminal cases in New York, Florida and Washington in which they accuse Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and senior government officials of drug trafficking, money laundering and other offenses.
- The move escalates the Trump administration’s efforts to unseat the leftist regime. Prosecutors said the cases were the culmination of a decade-long narco-terrorism investigation of the Venezuelans and their coordination with the Colombian drug-trafficking guerilla group FARC that has flooded the US with cocaine for the past 20 years.
- In addition, the State Department designated Maduro and top current and former officials from Venezuela’s military, parliament and judiciary under its Narcotics Rewards Program, offering a $15 million reward for information leading to Maduro’s arrest. In a separate case filed in federal court in Miami, prosecutors accused the sitting chief justice of Venezuela’s Supreme Court, Maikel José Moreno Pérez, with taking millions of dollars in bribes.
- Although Maduro remains in control of Venezuela, last year the US and some 60 countries recognized Juan Guaidó, then-president of the country’s national assembly, as the legitimate president. (WSJ, CNN)
- The Coder and the Dictator: “Gabriel Jiménez hated the Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro. But he loved cryptocurrency. When he built the regime a digital coin, he nearly paid with his life.” (NYT, $)
It Takes A Village To Commit A Horrible Murder
- Turkish prosecutors charged 20 Saudi nationals Wednesday in the gruesome murder of dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who was killed and dismembered in the kingdom’s consulate in Istanbul October 2018.
- Two of the men, former royal court adviser Saud al-Qahtani and former deputy head of intelligence Ahmed al-Asiri, are close to Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.
- The CIA and several western governments have concluded that MbS ordered Khashoggi’s assassination; the kingdom denies the claims, instead blaming rogue agents who took a repatriation mission too far.
- Arrest warrants for the suspects have been issued, but as none are in the country a trial in absentia will be opened at an unspecified date. Turkey is seeking life imprisonment in all 20 cases. Several rights groups have repeatedly called for an independent international investigation into the journalist’s death. (Guardian)
Additional World News
- Ecuador’s first Wilderness Quiet Park could be a model in a movement to protect natural quiet (Vox) Additional song: Simon & Garfunkel – The Sounds of Silence
- ‘People think it’s magic’: how one of Brazil’s poorest cities gets its best school results (Guardian)
- Great Barrier Reef suffers third mass coral bleaching event in five years (Guardian)
- On Russia-China Border, Selective Memory of Massacre Works for Both Sides (NYT, $)
- U.S. Forces In Syria Tackle A More Complex — And Possibly Dangerous — Mission (NPR)
- Militants in Iraq Take Covert Approach to Anti-U.S. Campaign (WSJ, $) & For Afghanistan Already on Brink, U.S. Aid Cut Is a Big Shove (NYT, $)
- Hong Kong Police Arrest Opposition Politician Under Colonial-Era Law (WSJ, $)
- Far-Right Faction of German Populist Party Vows to Dissolve (NYT, $)
COVID-19
- U.S. Surpasses China In Cases Of Coronavirus (NPR)
- Breakingviews – Virus makes water shortages everyone’s problem (Reuters)
- The coronavirus is now the American virus: As deaths and infections mount, our historic failure to stop the outbreak will become a dark lesson (The Verge)
- Jair Bolsonaro claims Brazilians ‘never catch anything’ as Covid-19 cases rise: President suggests citizens may already have antibodies that help virus ‘not to proliferate’, as cases rise to nearly 3,000 (Guardian). Oh, we are sure Jair is wrong on this — this is what happens when we elect leaders who not only don’t understand science but are proud ignoramuses.
- In China’s Hubei, uncertainty, pessimism and hope as life resumes (Reuters)
- Coronavirus: Pangolins found to carry related strains: Smuggled pangolins have been found to carry viruses closely related to the one sweeping the world. (BBC)
- How Will the Coronavirus End? (Atlantic) [We very much applaud The Atlantic and The New York Times for providing free access and guidance on the COVID-19 outbreak.]
- How Coronavirus Tests Actually Work (FiveThirtyEight)
- U.S. Army Halts Training Over Coronavirus but Then Changes Its Mind: The infection rate within the American military has shot up to a degree some officials find alarming. (NYT)
- Canada attacks ‘damaging’ Trump plan to deploy troops at border (Reuters)
- Coronavirus: National Shutdown Is the Least Bad Option (Atlantic) & Shutdown Spotlights Economic Cost of Saving Lives (NYT)
- Coronavirus deaths and severe cases by age: What we know (Vox)
- The Coronavirus Revives Facebook as a News Powerhouse (NYT) Emperor Mark’s Second Act
Alex Wong via Getty Images
Capitalism Fantasyland: Where The Best Companies Provide Addictive Products
- Walmart pharmacists protested filling suspicious opioid prescriptions, but company compliance officers told them to keep “driving sales,” ignoring the country’s opioid epidemic.
- A Republican US Attorney in Texas thought the evidence gathered — after two years of investigating Walmart’s opioid dispensing practices — was damning. People were dying.
- But when the Texas prosecution team went to Washington to meet with top Trump appointees at the DOJ, they were shut down. Subsequent efforts by the Texas team were also thwarted, as Trump appointees continued to side with Walmart. Walmart even took a tactic from the Trump playbook and began attacking the prosecutors and investigators.
- Walmart’s ability to go over the heads of the Texas office was so profoundly frustrating that the lead civil prosecutor on the case resigned in protest in October 2019. “I deeply regret that [Justice] Department leadership prevented [the Eastern District of Texas] from filing its lawsuit in 2018,” he wrote. “Corporations cannot poison Americans with impunity.” And yet Attorney General Bill Barr has inserted himself into multiple investigations of Trump friends and associates.
- White-collar and corporate prosecutions are at a record low. For those who spent years investigating Walmart, the chasm between the administration’s public posturing and the behavior behind closed doors has been deeply discouraging. (ProPublica)
- Capitalism is turning us into addicts: How Big Business shapes our habits and desires. (Vox)
- Capitalism’s Favorite Drug: The dark history of how coffee took over the world (Atlantic, $)
- Some of the most successful companies right now offer the most addictive products: Facebook, Apple, Google, coffee, high sugary foods, video gaming, etc….thankfully Britney stands in solidarity against these addiction dealing capitalist companies: Comrade Britney Spears! Star calls for strike and wealth redistribution (Guardian)
We All Gave Up Way Too Much For Lent This Year
- President Trump has been pushing to reopen the country by April 12, Easter Sunday. This despite warnings from medical experts that measures such as closing businesses and social distancing need more time to work. On Wednesday Trump accused the media of wanting to keep the US economy shuttered during the coronavirus pandemic to undermine his chances of re-election.
- “The LameStream Media is the dominant force in trying to get me to keep our Country closed as long as possible in the hope that it will be detrimental to my election success,” he tweeted. “The real people want to get back to work ASAP. ”
- At Wednesday’s White House coronavirus task force briefing, Trump aggressively denied that the Easter timeline is based on his political interests. Then he patted himself on the back and barked at a reporter: “we’ve done one hell of a job, nobody’s done the job that we’ve done – and it’s lucky that you have [Trump’s task force people] here right now for this problem because you wouldn’t even have a country left.” (Guardian)
- New Orleans Coronavirus: City Faces a Nightmare, and Mardi Gras May Be Why (NYT)
- Trump team failed to follow NSC’s pandemic playbook (Politico)
Weekend Reads
- The Fibonacci Sequence Affects the Stock Market (Smithsonian Magazine) You are saying a spiral shell is telling me I should have put all my money into the market on Tuesday morning and let it ride to Thursday’s stock closing! 🙂
- If all our actions are shaped by luck, are we still agents? (Aeon) You mean this is all pure luck—yes, we think so too: Bill Ackman warned ‘hell is coming’ because of virus: He then pocketed $2B in bets against markets (CNBC)
- How Joseph Smith and the Early Mormons Challenged American Democracy (New Yorker, $)
- Choose your addiction ahem tech overlord: Living a Google-free life with a Huawei phone (Verge)
- Inside FIRE, the implausible millennial movement to save, invest, and quit the American workplace (Vox) Perhaps one day another generation will comment and sell swag that says: OK Millennial.
PNUT LAUGHS
Daily Pnut covers serious topics but we also love a good chortle. Moving forward we are going to try to end every Daily Pnut with a light touch: A reporter’s reaction when a bison herd approaches has the internet in stitches. Yellowstone says he did the right thing (CNN) We applaud Deion for his social distancing.