Exciting news day today:
– Major retailers: our shelves ARE well stocked
– Govt stats: it WAS a jobs boom, not bust, in summer
– Rating agencies: BBB bill will NOT add to inflation
– COVD Team: 10% of 5-11 vaxed in 10 days (5x faster than adult vax roll out)— Ronald Klain (@WHCOS) November 17, 2021
It’s a real dilemma for Our Failed Mainstream Media: On the one hand, their Republican masters want to keep pushing the story that President Biden has broken the economy, and we’re all gonna starve if the GOP isn’t reinstalled in 2022 at the latest.
On the other hand, the big-box retail businesses that buy holiday-season advertising want their viewers to get out those credit cards and BUY SHOP BUY.
What are a bunch of lazy, overpaid carnival barkers supposed to dooo?!?
L O U D E R ???? #BidensAmerica ???? https://t.co/AT6czo37be
— Backstorymom1 (@Backstorymom1) November 17, 2021
Target and Walmart are both saying they're doing gangbusters on revenues and will have sufficient supply on hand for Christmas.
Lede: Biden saved Christmas.
— lawhawk #vaxxingforafriend (@lawhawk) November 17, 2021
BREAKING: The number of shipping containers sitting on docks at the port of Los Angeles has declined by 29 percent in recent weeks.
Why isn’t the media reporting this GREAT NEWS?!
— Jon Cooper ???? (@joncoopertweets) November 16, 2021
Makes sense. If you’re worried about inflation getting worse, and read those headlines about the Most Expensive Christmas etc, you’re running that credit card until it gives off sparks. https://t.co/tYbdDDQgDe
— David Weigel (@daveweigel) November 17, 2021
ah well, nonetheless https://t.co/LzoQ6nLvWZ
— Gerry Doyle (@mgerrydoyle) November 17, 2021
EXCLUSIVE Rating agencies say Biden's spending plans will not add to inflationary pressure https://t.co/lz1W7ig1Of pic.twitter.com/rTQ6BW27ih
— Reuters (@Reuters) November 17, 2021
Danielx
Good news is SO boring.
NotMax
Wait a cotton pickin’ minute, you mean we’re not DOOMED?
Am so confoozled.
Mary G
I broke my manual wheelchair and went to buy a replacement and there were none in stock anywhere. I ordered one from a place I never heard of for a ridiculously low price, which is almost certainly a scam because I am desperate.
Keith P.
They need to sell it better, though. The media isn’t going to breathless cover Ron Klain’s tweets.
trollhattan
Love that concerned parents can now get their younger ones vaccinated. Talk about an anxiety-buster.
The Portland pro soccer clubs are hosting a 5-11 YO vaccination clinic tomorrow at Providence Park (downtown, served by light rail). Good for them!
https://mobile.twitter.com/ThornsFC/status/1460292861400784901
debbie
I was in Kroger’s on Monday and was happy to see there were plenty of turkeys available (please, the animal kind).
MikefromArlington
This is excellent news for you know who
Brachiator
I remember when ratings agencies claimed that their utterances were merely arbitrary opinions protected by freedom of speech laws.
So, just a bunch of hot air.
Also, some reporter should go back and see how they reacted to Trump’s tax cuts and spending.
Grumpy Old Railroader
I dunno, maybe bidness can’t find workers at the same time unemployment keeps getting lower DOES NOT mean lazy ass workers keep quitting their jobs to lay around the house. Maybe it means that workers are like my grandkids and quitting low paying dead end jobs to get better jobs at higher wages
debbie
@Brachiator:
Don’t forget how well their antics went over in 2009.
Jeffro
Ron Klain’s got the right idea: boil it down to 3-5 ‘notes’ of good economic news, and hit them over and over.
Except maybe we need someone other than Ron Klain doing this work? Maybe we need EVERYONE doing this work?
I have no idea who The Yoots would listen to in this regard, but I’m willing to defer to iGen or Gen Z or whatever on this. Just get the message out, every day, every way.
Roger Moore
I’m somewhat on David Weigel’s side. Big sales with low consumer confidence could make sense if people assume inflation is going to go up; they want to spend money now because they assume it will be worth a lot less in the future. That said, I don’t think that’s the story. I think it’s a mix of the media going with the most downbeat news on the economy they can find, people being willing to believe things are bad in spite of their own good circumstances, and politically motivated belief that the economy must be bad because Those People are in charge.
Yutsano
@Brachiator:
U so funner! Introspection? Never heard of her!
Although we could put this bee into the bonnet of one Ms. Jennifer Rubin. This is the kind of nugget she loves to beat Republicans with lately. Now how to get it to her attention…
Sebastian
We now know that Facebook and Google/Youtube intentionally rile up and radicalize users because it generates views and impressions. It also seems public and political sentiment is swinging towards regulation.
How is what modern media is doing (FYNYT, FOX, etc) any different?
Dan B
I’ve been spending plenty. The online shopping is perfect for a pandemic, especially the isolation boredom. I’m awaiting soaps from Satby and bulbs are arriving today in time for dark and days of rain. Whee! And another set of inexpensive throw pillows from Turkey.
Glad to do my part for Joe’s economy.
raven
@Mary G: Can you get a used one somewhere? Quite a few on the Orange County Craigslist
https://orangecounty.craigslist.org/d/for-sale-by-owner/search/sso?query=wheelchair
JaneE
A friend’s son is moving back to CA from Texas. His mom was taking a weekend with friends and saw a help wanted notice. Sent the info to her son without comment. He applied, had a zoom interview and some phone calls, and was offered a job that sounds ideal for him. Small resort in the middle of nowhere, so one of the benefits is housing provided. Another +1 for quits and hires in the same month. He also turned down a job offer from a place he worked at before the move to Texas, but their pay was no higher than it was a decade ago, and less than he had been getting. Score +1 for the “can’t find employees” contingent, but you can’t expect someone to work for less than they are worth unless you are a Republican.
Major Major Major Major
@Roger Moore: I’ve definitely bumped my spending on items that haven’t gone up yet. Clothes, collectibles, games, books.
@Grumpy Old Railroader: unfortunately inflation is outpacing wage growth for most people who’ve gotten raises.
Not that there’s all too much biden can do about it other than watch as the Fed pumps the brakes if necessary.
Enjoying a McRib right now thanks to the skyrocketing cost of beef.
satby
@Dan B: Are the floods affecting Seattle?
JMG
I did my first Christmas shopping yesterday and today. I used to hate Christmas shopping, because I hate going to stores. But online shopping is the best. I have bought both goods (soccer jersey, video games) and services (tickets to theater in NYC, part of long weekend in April that’s Alice’s present). Did inflation affect my choices? Not in the slightest.
Villago Delenda Est
Let’s be clear here: it is the job of the vermin of the Village to attack Biden (or, for that matter, any Democratic President) with anything they think might stick. Because that’s what their parasite corporate paymasters want.
debbie
Great news!
Step by step, they’re coming for them all…
JaneE
@Roger Moore: The buy now repay with cheap dollars works great for things like mortgages, especially back in the 70’s and 80’s when they went from 7% to 12 or 15% over the decade and most people had COLA clauses to let their pay catch up. It made sense to stock up when you knew, or could expect, that next month or next year would be priced higher, but that was current cash not credit purchases. Anyone who knows inflation means you pay back with cheaper money probably knows that credit card interest rates are a lot higher than inflation is now, or is projected to be.
I would guess that it is more pent-up demand and more disposable income – especially for people with kids who are getting checks from the Biden administration and have a little breathing room now. I keep seeing things about workers getting more money because of the shortages and signing bonuses, which could be another reason people are suddenly spending more. I have to wonder how much of this new spending is for higher ticket goods like appliances, or even new tires.
Brachiator
Did not get to throw this into the earlier odds and ends thread, but it kinda fits here.
One of the great philosophical questions of our time. What is meat?
Does McD offer a truly meatless McRib sandwich?
Sure Lurkalot
@debbie: I was there today and guess what! Turkeys galore. It’s a conundrum. They must be fake.
delk
The local animal rescue is having an adoption festival this weekend. We have RSVP’d. Not sure if I want the responsibility with winter approaching. Ideally I was thinking of waiting until spring but it can’t hurt to look.
Jeffro
Ay-MEN
They’re really going full-bore here, despite the utter insanity of trumpov’s 4 years and the obvious, murderous bent of the current GQP.
Two-decade war ended? “nothing less than an utter humiliation for the US”
Pandemic response organized and turbo-charged? “Here’s 1 person in 100 who thinks vaccines come from the devil”
Inflation creeping up for a half-dozen easily identifiable reasons? “Biden doesn’t know what he’s doing and we’re all going to go broke when we buy our 12 gallons of milk each week”
It really is amazing to watch. If they didn’t have their
fingersfistsentire dumbbell set on the scale, who knows what we’d be looking at? 70% D approval? Who knows what horrors might come from that? The return of slightly progressive taxation? (shudder)Jeffro
Ilhan Omar just…oh my…she went there re: Boebert and her scummy speech today.
OU-CH
West of the Rockies
@debbie:
Slowly the FBI turned… step by step, inch by inch…
Fair Economist
We are actually seeing an unprecedented boom, being held back *somewhat* by the inefficiencies of corporate capitalism. The energy companies and the shipping companies – both mostly oligopolies – have so marinated in the free market nonsense that the government can’t improve the economy that they were caught totally flatfooted when it did. In addition, many industries have deliberately held back on capacity improvements because driving the price up allows them greater profits, and they are far too concentrated for free market competition.
The solution is to improve efficiency by aggressive enforcement of antitrust and selective nationalization of critical industries.
debbie
@West of the Rockies:
“Pick two fingers, any fingers.”
Ken
Was that their defense when people asked how they could ever have thought that credit default swaps based on mortgage tranches was a sane, much less a safe, investment?
I’m slightly more trusting of the bond market’s evaluations, since they lose money if they get it wrong. They seem to think that it’s safe to lock their money away for ten years at about 1.6%.
laura
Hey cats and kittens! A young rapist was sentenced to no jail four his sexual assaults of 4 young women because the judge prayed about the potential harms that the young rapist may face as a result of incarceration. Not to worry, he’s white and his parents have wealth and influence. One of the young women he raped was present for the verdict and vomited in the ladies room after justice had been meted out. So that’s nice for the young rapist and his bright future.
Mike in NC
Has Fucker Carlson weighed in on the War on Christmas yet, or does that have to wait until after Thanksgiving?
Fair Economist
I’ll give Walmart this: they recognized what was about to happen with worker availability and substantially increased their wages. I’m sure they did it as just another way to put the competition out of business, but I have to respect their acknowledgement of reality. Result: plenty of workers as Christmas kicks in, with lots of competitors, especially those run by conservatives, strangled by their own refusal to let “those people” get a raise.
laura
@delk: Oh Delk, there’s a creature out there and there’s gonna be some loving. ?
Brachiator
@JaneE:
Lots of good data on consumer spending. Some of it is obviously very detailed. A standard source are the various “beige book” analyses from the various Federal Reserve districts.
A Deloitte analysis looking at 2020 vs early 2021 noted the following:
I think that 2022 will be very interesting. I am expecting a good number of middle income and lower income individuals and families to see significant increases in their tax refunds. This may help to relieve any inflationary pressure on wages.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: Oh interesting thanks! I’ve always wondered how this will be handled (as have many others of course). Didn’t know there’d been recent developments.
mrmoshpotato
@Mike in NC:
There’s a time of the year when the shitstains at FOX aren’t yelling about the “War on Christmas?”
Dan B
@satby: We haven’t been out much and we’re on a gentle hillside and the lee of said hill so not us but about 30 miles north it was bad with the Skagit at record height. Fortunately there was a new levee that protected the small city. My partner’s siblings in Bellingham, near the Canadian border, had some flooding on roads. His brother lives on Lake Whatcom but their weir system prevented flooding.
The winds were ferocious for 36 hours with 60mph gusts even in the lee of the hill. Today and yesterday are sunny and in the low 40’s after being 60 a couple days before. The mountains are white with new snow.
Another Scott
They’re barefaced liars, or have lost contact with reality.
Or both.
:-/
(via LOLGOP)
Cheers,
Scott.
topclimber
Two notes on the economy from a frackin’ MBA:
1. As designated hunter-gatherer in our pod, I find inflation to be about as annoying as it always is. Nominal prices are up a few percentage points at the supermarket–3 to 5%. Stealth prices (putting less product in the package but keeping the same price) is probably the same, but maybe a bit less because it is harder to retool for different box sizes when the supply chain is constipated.
What is REALLY annoying is having to spend more time in said store looking for products in short supply. If I was a suburban mom, damn right I would be pissed that you are eating into the time I juggle work and family.
I was OK when Gatorade G2 disappeared during the pandemic. I figured one of the many non-nutritious ingredients, or perhaps an assembly line, was needed for medical supplies. But why is their no generic Splenda? That’s costing me 50% more to fund the lost cause of weight control.
Don’t give me gas about fuel prices. It’s the same $3.55 per gallon in my part of NY as it was in 2015 and probably in 2008. That’s nominal numbers, friends, but feel free to correct me. A better man would check the web.
2: Question for Fair Economist and any other jackals fluent in economics. If productivity rises fast enough, doesn’t that neutralize inflation? More money chasing fewer goods is an inflation prescription until, oops, productivity results in more goods at the same price.
MBA in financial policy, all you damn takers out there.
debbie
@Brachiator:
Speaking as a member of the tribe, that’s pretty typical. “You can only have it if I say you can have it.”
J R in WV
Here’s our latest good news, and it’s really good.
Our septic system is — like so much in our lives — non-traditional. The leach field is across a creek from the septic tank, very much not down hill. So it isn’t a gravity feed system. There’s a pump, with a flat valve to turn the pump on when fluids accumulate, and off when it pumps the level down. Lately, not so much.
So I called the guy who installed it in the first place, back in 1993. Since then we have had pumps put in by a local guy, Fred, who sold out his business, aged out and passed on. But yesterday late afternoon Tim showed up with an assistant, Mel. and they looked everything over. This morning Mel came back with a new pump, electrical bits, and a shovel to “blow out the lines” in the dispersal field, which are more shallow than traditional fields. I dunno what all happened out there, I stayed away from as much of this as I could.
Anyway, TL;DR, GOOD NEWS: our water disposal system is back up and functional — hurray !!!
topclimber
@Another Scott: I don’t fault anybody who is worried about the economy.What with a pandemic, climate disruption, a fascist wave and a corporate media that for some reason doesn’t want folks to understand economic issues, what’s not to stress?
debbie
@topclimber:
I haven’t noticed much of a price increase in the things I buy; what’s ticking me off is that (as an example) Target has stopped carrying some of the brands of things I buy. This is the first time I’ve noticed this in at least 15 to 20 years. IANAE, but it seems like Target’s intentionally shrinking their product offerings so we will in fact have fewer choices.
Dan B
@laura: Awful story. The religious aspect is very disturbing. Did the judge think of prison rape as too harsh? Probably thought of the big black guys who would do it to this child molester.
Matt McIrvin
@NotMax: Don’t worry, Erik Loomis just declared in his infinite wisdom that all attempts to curb carbon emissions are pointless, so you can just wallow in that.
Belafon
@Roger Moore: plenty of people believe liberals, blacks, and the government are out to get them, yet they leave home everyday. Talk about a disconnect.
Mary G
Just got home and that’s where I was going to start, thanks Raven! I’m a bit calmer now – I have a really nice one sitting around that’s too wide to get through my small door (measured wrong) that I can use outside in the garden and a transport chair from the car I can use in the house, plus an insanely sumptuous electric one on order, so I’m not in danger of being stuck. Just being a Karen that I can’t get what I want when I want it. People on Medicare without money go through hell when a chair breaks, so I’ll make an extra donation to help.
Brachiator
@debbie:
I have noticed something similar in a couple of supermarkets.
It may be that stores are getting ruthless in cutting back on items that do not sell well compared to other products.
Also here in Southern California, some restaurants, cafes, pizza places and fast food restaurants are seriously raising prices. Some of this may be to make up for the decline in customers during lockdown and continuing limits on the maximum number of diners.
This is having an interesting effect. There are some mid-tier restaurants that seemed to be too pricey. But with lower level cafes raising their prices, I know people who look at the mid-tier places as better values and choose to eat there instead of going to old standbys.
gwangung
The usual conservative gaslighters are going to ignore the data and keep saying what a fucked up economy we have.
And people will buy it.
Spanky
@Sure Lurkalot:
Wasn’t that a character in a Bond movie?
Geminid
@Matt McIrvin: Eric Gloomis.
Betty
Have you all seen Senator Rick Scott crowing that a bad economy and high inflation is a gold mine for Republicans? Florida does have some of the best people!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@gwangung:
Thanks dude
topclimber
@debbie: Walmart si, Target no. That’s probably my classism showing.
Patricia Kayden
Craig
@Keith P.: I’m curious how you think they can sell it better.
ETA. How to get the media to breathless cover it? How to get the media to not just cover the sales pitch as politics, spin, and dollars wasted on an Ad Campaign, ” and why does Biden need an Ad Campaign?”? Legit curious.
zhena gogolia
@Jeffro:
Wow.
Patricia Kayden
@Betty: I’m trying to figure out where the bad economy is. The Republicans are trying to gin one up but it’s not here.
jnfr
@Mary G:
I’m really sorry to hear that. Would it be worthwhile to order a better one as well even if it won’t arrive till later? Sounds like you’re going to need a backup.
Patricia Kayden
@gwangung: Democrats have to learn how to toot their own horns. Stop letting Republicans drive the talking points.
Patricia Kayden
@Mary G: Arghhhh. I guess I’m naive enough to believe that wheelchairs should be given to people who need them for free. Sigh.
Geoduck
There’s a movement bubbling in some quarters for retail workers to stage a mass walkout on Black Friday. I don’t know how serious and widespread it all is, but if enough happens that the media is forced to pay attention, it will be.. interesting.
dexwood
@debbie: I was in Target this morning and was surprised to see carts full of boxes and stockers working hard to fill shelves in nearly every section of the store.
laura
@Dan B: No idea if the potential for predation while incarcerated crossed his mind because he was so fucking busy treating the victims like they do not matter in the big scheme of things- or whether he troubled his beautiful mind that the community would be at risk having a sexual predator on the loose as I’ve been too busy watching women’s rights vanish before my very eyes. But hey, they’re building a maternity farm in Texas and the living quarters for the sluts will be far back from the road and they’ll have dogs and security, so that’s nice too.
JAFD
@topclimber: My friends in Philadelphia say that the Acme Markets have a generic ‘Splenda’ in their private label ‘Signature’ products. Will check next trip.
@Debbie: Earlier this year Target had a private label food line, ‘Market Pantry’, some good things at reasonable prices. Then it seemed to disappear. Now available again in some stores. Don’t know why, YGIAGAM. (I actually don’t get to Targets all that often, not close to me, but sometimes near other stores I go to…)
Scout211
Some good news for Californians. We will once again have budget surplus.
Yet another reason I am glad to live in California
debbie
@Brachiator:
The products I’m referring to were major brands. They weren’t not selling.
debbie
@topclimber:
I would bet I would get grief at Walmart for wearing a mask, unlike the Target just a couple of blocks away.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
Yowsa!
Fair Economist
@topclimber:
In fully competitive theory, yes (specifically because there would no longer be fewer goods.) The problem we’ve had for 40 years now, however, is that we *don’t* have a competitive market in many goods – most fields have a few large companies with substantial pricing power. They have used their pricing power to extract most of the gains and keep them away from the workers. The collapse of unions, who could exert pricing power on behalf of the workers, makes it worse. Indeed, corporate profits have popped up quite a bit over the past few months as they take advantage of this.
Scout211
@debbie:
I went to Target earlier this week and noticed the changes in products that they carry that you mentioned up-thread.
There has been a major remodel and reorganization in our local Targets. They seemed to have added way more floor space to clothing (which was already fairly expensive compared to the TJX stores) and moved just about everything except for food and electronics. The cleaning products and the pet food sections are teensy tiny now. They have also expanded the home goods and decor section. I had to look all over the store to find where they moved the kitchen utensils. So my experience was that some section are much smaller and some are much larger.
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia: Yikes. That needs a “batshit crazy” alert.
Scout211
@debbie:
I have never gotten grief for wearing a mask at Walmart or anywhere for that matter. But then again, I live in California, for which I am grateful.
prostratedragon
@laura: Cue Robert Mitchum saying, “You prayed?”
zhena gogolia
@MagdaInBlack: Do you mean Omar or Boebert? Omar was sorely provoked.
Nelle
@debbie: I do go to a Walmart near me. Masks everywhere. I go to the one that has a lot of Bosnian immigrants and refugees working there, some Congolese refugees. There is another one that hires a lot of Sudanese refugees. A woman working at the Walmart told me that she is now full time, she got a raise, and a bonus.
It might be tempting to say that they are exploiting newly arrived refugees and immigrants, but the ones I talk to are pleased to get started somewhere and when they are the majority of those working there, it is certainly a different sense of place. I like hearing the accents and languages spoken in the aisles, looking at the ethnic food sections.
There is a lot I have failed to learn to like about living in Iowa. But I find an expansive and reliable generosity toward refugees across political lines, established in the late ’70’s by the Republican Governor, Robert Ray. So far, it seems to predominate. (The resettlement agency that I volunteer with is getting 55 more refugees this month, that they know about. A bit of a scramble to get ready.)
Brachiator
@debbie:
OK. We may be talking about something slightly different.
I have noticed a decrease in variety, still involving major brands. So previously, say a Blue Cheese and French Onion of a product. So now no Blue Cheese and the shelving has been adjusted, so it is clear that they store is no longer carrying the eliminated variety.
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia: Oh I mean Boebert. Good lord, what trash.
Nelle
I notice fewer choices. I’m sort of grateful. Too many choices without much difference. Of course, I lived in a country that had few choices, fruits and vegetables were seasonal, and I went to the store to see what they had, not with a menu of what I wanted to make. It was sheer overload to move back to the States and see all this stuff, aisles and aisles of stuff.
zhena gogolia
@MagdaInBlack: We are in trouble deep. Several of their speeches were unhinged, including the minority leader’s.
Major Major Major Major
@Brachiator: a lot of the non-chain restaurants in my neck of the woods have raised prices 10-20% for some items. I don’t particularly mind paying $15 instead of $13 for ramen but it’s definitely a thing. The Greek place I go to has raised bowl prices by $1.50 as well. Off the top of my head, just stuff I order a lot.
David ? ☘The Establishment☘? Koch
I was shopping on Pornhub, buying some Xmas DVDs for friends and family and they were completely stocked. I didn’t see any shortages.
MagdaInBlack
@zhena gogolia: People like Boebert and MTG and Gaetz are showboats who will eventually self destruct. McCarthy is a spineless dolt.
The real work is still getting done. ?
Martin
Two observations:
debbie
@Nelle:
That’s great. They’re already grumbling here about resettling refugees from Afghanistan.
trollhattan
@Scout211: Those BASTARDS!
trollhattan
@MagdaInBlack: Hey now, just because she birfed a baby in her pickup and then continued on her meth distribution rounds–not like that coddled Mayor Pete person who took time off–doesn’t make her trash. She could be recycling.
trollhattan
@Spanky:
Bond flick started but spiked before completion: “An Affair Most Fowl.”
topclimber
@Nelle: Fair warning: I really don’t know from WalMart. I used to browse their shelves for super deals until I figured out that Target was basically the same.
I mostly hate WalMart for other reasons, but also because I can afford to. I am sure that a lot of lower income folks feel differently.
trollhattan
@Martin: Enron*-created rolling blackouts: Recall Gray Davis and install Terminator.Texas fatal midwinter blackouts in the midst of deadly pandemic: “Whoo-hoo, is Greg Abbott the best, or what?”Different rulebooks.
*Texas corporation
Dan B
@MagdaInBlack: Mr. Bobert flashed some college girls. Or that’s what I got from the internet. Mountains of crazy.
Nelle
@topclimber: I don’t mean to sound patronizing but sometimes I prefer Walmart because of who is there. Not just the refugees, but people who are struggling. Once, looking at bandaids, I got into a conversation with a man who said he and his wife were raising their three grandchildren and that one was about to graduate high school and could then get a job to help support them all. He was tired and wanted to retire, but just couldn’t. The parents of the kids were lost to drug addiction. I need to hear those stories. I need to see those people. He was so kind, so tired, and struggling so hard. I need to hear their stories.
trollhattan
@topclimber:
IDK if Walmart is more affordable than Target, I doubt it, especially over a year of shopping in either. Walmarts are uniformly disorganized and chaotic, bad lighting, dirty, out of lots of items. The worst Target seems better than the best Walmart.
ian
@Major Major Major Major:
Do you mean 15-13 cents? What kind of ramen packets are you getting?
Mary G
I tend to go through a lot of wheelchairs from bashing the wall during the very tight turn into my bedroom, but the one that broke was really short-lived – I paid $268 regular price in March 2020. The exact same model will go once they get here – for between $297-$339. I flinch because I am a miser, but I have the money ready to hand.
Think of all the people who can’t get enough money to save any of it – it’s a catastrophe. Not being able to get around is so psychically damaged, not to mention the roadblocks to working, shopping, or just getting to another room in the house. Like the bathroom.
I hated the popular rheumatologist I was originally referred to when I moved back here. When I was interviewing replacements, I told one woman of a problem getting something and she said that the medical durable (all tools from canes to catheters) industry is full of crooks and thieves. She’s been my doctor ever since.
If your provider works smoothly with Medicare and got you everything you needed the day you needed it after your knee replacement, congratulations. You’ve been judged as someone who can and will pitch a fit and are likely to be listened to, but the disabled black women on Twitter will tell you that your experience is unusual.
raven
@Nelle: Did you get my email?
RaflW
We need to find out why the BLS numbers were so wrong. I understand that they can be volatile and complicated to gather. And the pandemic has probably distorted things a bit more. But this was the largest correction on record. And issued just days after an election where the economy played an outsized role.
The man in charge of BLS is a Trump appointee from 2019. He came from the Libertarian Mercatus Center. He was a Heritage Foundation guy for fifteen years. And served the GOP Senate as a staffer in between.
I think we should be asking Chairman Bobby Scott to organize a Committee on Education & Labor hearing to see what the heck is up at BLS. We’ve seen what a Trumper can do the USPS. Is there fuckery afoot at BLS?
eclare
@trollhattan: That perfectly describes the Walmarts in Memphis. A friend who used to live here but moved to Plano says you can’t even compare the stores there with the stores here, they are so much better.
But the main reason that I don’t go is the one closest to me is about eighteen miles away. I don’t care what the prices are, not worth it.
Martin
@Nelle: So, one of my pet peeves about Iowa is the environmental harm that the IA agricultural community does to CA because of their attitudes toward immigrants.
CA is the top ag state in the country and IA is #2. IA is a ways back, its far from neck and neck, but it’s still #2, so sizable, and certainly punching well above its weight. IA is #1 in federal ag subsidies, CA is #12 – getting ⅓ as much despite 2x the receipts. That’s the first thing that hints that something is rotten. IA has 75,000 farm workers, CA has around 600,000, or 8x as many. That’s the next thing.
See, IA and most other states in the south and midwest have consolidated their ag economies around a handful of easily automated crops. Some of this is just rent seeking off of land owners, some is socializing their businesses through regulatory capture, and some of it is tailoring their businesses to avoid having to rely on undesirable labor – mainly immigrants.
What that means is that crops that these states used to grow, they no longer do because they’ve lost the ag expertise (especially in the south as that was contained in slaves and their descendants which could at least be corralled through Jim Crow) and consolidated around a tiny subset of the crops that we need as a nation. Pecans, which the south used to dominate, could substitute for almonds in almost every instance, use less water, and be grown in states that have more water but they can’t grow them because they are high-labor crops and that would necessitate tolerating immigrants as their economy would be dependent on them. Much easier to turn groundwater into gasoline by growing corn which only requires a big fucking John Deere. As such, all of these high labor crops are shuffled off to CA because we have almost ½ of the nations farm workers. Now, we don’t mind the economic boost and jobs, and it means that we get veto power over a LOT of your agriculture (ask any hog or chicken/egg farmer about complying with CAs animal cruelty laws to be able to sell in state) but its putting a huge amount of pressure on our water economy, and should that collapse (and it’s teetering on the edge) not only will it hurt CAs economy, but 50% of the fruit and vegetables grown in the US come from CA, and I guarantee CA will be better able to stock our grocery stores than IA will should we have shortages of all of these other crops, and a LOT of that is simply because of anti-immigrant sentiment. I agree that Iowa is not overall an anti-immigrant state (my mom lives there) but the IA ag community is. There’s a reason Steve King kept winning IA-4.
eclare
@Nelle: That is a very kind sentiment. I remember when photos came out of Walmart shoppers several years ago, poorly dressed, poorly groomed, unhealthy. People laughed at the photos, I just felt sympathy for people living very hard lives.
Matt McIrvin
@zhena gogolia: I thought Omar was the batshit one until I clicked through and… nope, she was just giving an accurate description.
eclare
@RaflW: Very interesting…
Ruckus
@topclimber:
When I walked past the Unocal station near me yesterday cash price for regular is $4.50 and credit is $4.57, Chevron is $4.80. CA seems to be a bit higher than the average.
zhena gogolia
@Matt McIrvin: Yeah. And that wasn’t even the worst speech given.
The idea that any of my fellow citizens vote for these lunatics is deeply disturbing.
prostratedragon
@ian: Ramen at a restaurant?
topclimber
@Ruckus: Check your state gasoline and sales tax.
Martin
@eclare: The closest one to me is a mile and a half and I refuse to go to it. Here’s how Walmart’s business was assessed in 2003.
While their business has changed since then, there’s a direct through line from Walmarts business model in 2003 to the rise of Amazon and Amazon’s adoption of Walmarts old business approach, mainly through their Amazon Basics product segment.
Further, Walmart’s labor practices were deliberately designed to use federal welfare programs as a large scale subsidy, while lobbying to maintain that subsidy for years. They were far from the only company doing this, but they were clearly one of the primary and largest funders of institutionalizing that.
jonas
@Fair Economist:
That’s supported by anecdata I’ve heard: Walmart stepped up and started paying high enough wages that it made working in a store or warehouse a much better deal than slaving behind a hot stove for $12/hr in a restaurant.
Ruckus
@Mary G:
Lady in my complex has polio and has to use a chair. Her doctor would not sign the paperwork for her to get an electric chair. It’s no skin off his butt to sign it, so I’m thinking there has to be a reason why and I’ve had the thought that some people are just fucking assholes. So now she has to find a new doc, which seems like fun when you live in a chair.
eclare
@Martin: I know about Walmart’s use of the SNAP program and Medicaid to feed and take care of its workers.
trollhattan
@Martin:
Good info. One wonders what would happen to Iowa’s economy if fed ethanol programs were done away with?
trollhattan
@Ruckus:
I see >$5/gal premium all around our metroplex and in the Bay Area, beginning a month or so back. I see no lack of shiny new full-size pickups.
Edmund Dantes
Dems can’t even win the war on Christmas!!! Here we are failing to stop Christmas from happening. What losers!!!
Ruckus
@topclimber:
Yes we pay high gas taxes here but CA is only $.20 more per gallon than NY and NY is #9 in tax/gal. It isn’t the all the taxes.
raven
@prostratedragon: Oh yea
Ruckus
@trollhattan:
Here in the eastern San Gabriel Vally area of socal it seems there are more pickups than cars and the new supersized, my dick is smaller than yours, pickups are a large percentage of them.
Martin
@Ruckus: Another journalism fail. CA’s high prices are sort of by design. CA has an additional tax on fuel above the standard ones other states often have due to our low carbon fuel standard (LCFS). That standard taxes fuel producers (more than just gasoline) for the full lifecycle cost of emissions – from extraction to emission from your vehicle based on average mileage standards (forcing fuel producers onto the side of higher mileage standards). This both further decouples CAs fuel market from the underlying wholesale market, and because there are various ways to earn credits against those taxes creates a difficult to control for variable for those costs which can be from 20 cents to a dollar a gallon depending on the fuel producer.
Earlier in the year, the delta from CA to the rest of the nation was upwards of $2, and now it’s down to about $1, so it’s likely there’s some geographic profit shifting taking place.
But I would point out that ⅔ of Americans think the government should do more to address climate change, but headlines suggest that discouraging gasoline consumption, the largest single contributor in the US right now, should not be one of them. If we want to address climate change, we need to burn less gas – either voluntarily or by market incentives. That’s what we’re seeing in CA. Cheap gas is incompatible with addressing climate change and people really need to internalize that. I get that people need gas to get to work and all that, I don’t discount that, but if you need gas, then you need to understand your role in perpetuating climate change and account for it in other places, and I don’t see that happening. The emissions being attributed to Exxon should be eliminated, even though those emissions come out of our cars which we demand access to as inexpensively as possible. We should at least be honest with ourselves and each other of our role in all of this.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: People drop $70k on a 3-ton vehicle with a V-8 and then complain about gas going up 50 cents.
prostratedragon
@raven: In another life I paid something like that for a good bowl in a restaurant. And of course about 1 percent of that for a bag of noodles that needs a lot of help from me to get anywhere near that kind of meal.
eachother
Perhaps this has been said. Perhaps I am late to say, the jobs report was off by a lot this summer. There were approval pole consequences. There were consequential effects, large enough to look intentional.
Are there any traceable connections to opposition individuals still occupying a federal desk at labor or other jobs data releases?
Martin
@prostratedragon: Proper asian communities have good ramen restaurants which bear as much resemblance to instant ramen as authentic tacos have to Old El Paso tacos that I grew up with. $10-$15 is about right for a good, fresh ramen.
Starfish
This story about a very rich dog selling his house that once belonged to Madonna is a little nutty.
Martin
@trollhattan: That’s about ⅓ of their corn crop. So, it wouldn’t collapse, but it’d hurt a hell of a lot.
One thing CA is VERY good at is marketing their crops. Oat milk is superior to almond milk in almost every metric – nutrition, water use, etc. and Iowa used to grow a LOT of oats and could turn that into a huge market and undercut CAs almond market, and its also as easily automated as corn, but it involves risk, building supply chains, partnering with companies to build that market, and well, much easier to just collect that crop insurance. Why compete if you don’t need to
This is why I support economic warfare out of CA. Iowa clearly isn’t going to innovate without it, so let’s start burning some of their industries down. I’d prefer better mechanisms, but there’s no realistic way to bring them about politically.
ian
@prostratedragon:
You guys get ramen… at restaurants? I get mine at dollar general
zhena gogolia
@ian: It’s a big thing. I don’t particularly like it. It reminds me too much of the packets.
Martin
@Ruckus: The LCFS, cap and trade, stuff like that isn’t accounted for as a tax, and those sit on top of the $.20 either directly or indirectly. I’m pretty sure they’re levied on the refiner rather than the retailer, so they function a bit more like an unaccounted VAT than a conventional transportation tax.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I agree fully, 1000%, and also doesn’t CA use the gas tax for most of the road building/repair? Plus of course the population here is higher and while rapid transit is much better than it was not all that long ago, there are still a lot of places that driving is about the only realistic way to get there.
raven
Ken
@Scout211: Just for reference, California’s projected surplus of $31 billion would be greater than the budgets of 27 states. Source.
topclimber
@Ruckus: California is weird.
ETA: Unless there is a transport issue, I don’t see why gas would cost substantially more in different locales.
I see Martin has pointed out where some of the weird pricing comes from.
eclare
@Martin: I stopped eating almonds and almond products when I found out how water intensive they were.
phdesmond
after her interview with Sherrilyn Ifill, Rachel speculated that Ifill would make a good supreme court nominee, should the occasion arise.
trollhattan
@ian:
Apologies in advance for a Facebook link.
https://www.facebook.com/shokiramen/
These folks opened a tiny ramen house here while keeping their restaurant open in Japan. Mind-blowing transformation from the Top Ramen eight-for-a-buck experience because like a bakery, they begin cooking the broths at two in the morning the night before. “A Bowl of Dreams” is an apt slogan, and while I’ve looked, nobody slinging restaurant ramen comes close.
Who knew?
trollhattan
@topclimber:
Yup. That’s what keeps folks moving here.
MisterForkbeard
@ian: Restaurant ramen is just stupidly good. Like, perhaps my favorite food.
This is very different from the instant ramen you make at home. For example: fried garlic and roasted pork are very common, and if you can find a place that does good stewed pork belly you may in fact be in heaven.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Accusations that the under count on the employment figures was deliberate from some Trump appointed Heritage Foundation twit.
https://twitter.com/BettyBowers/status/1461157002856574980?s=20
trollhattan
@Gin & Tonic:
God help us. It’s SOP to buy a ginormous pickup instead of what, two Camrys? just in case you find yourself needing to haul shit? Then who’s loading a half ton of broken concrete in the $70k truck? “Not mine, call your brother!”
IF high prices linger then the zeal for giant highway beasts will wane, but a blip doesn’t affect sales at all.
MisterForkbeard
@trollhattan: I used to live in the South Bay in CA, and there’s a huge amount of simply fantastic ramen restaurants there. Even the worst one is worth being a regular.
Martin
@Ruckus: Oh, totally. My son is up in Scotts Valley and doesn’t drive. In theory you can get from there to here using mass transit, and some of it isn’t logistically terrible (bus to San Jose, flight to OC) but it’s also not cost effective ($750 for a holiday flight), and it’s pretty environmentally terrible, so if you’re a young man trying desperate hard to minimize your carbon footprint, that’s not a desirable option, and HSR is still a decade off. You’d think Amtrak could take you, but they just stick you on a bus for 10 hours.
Eventually we’ll get there, and there will be some concessions we need to make along the way (like not coming home for Thanksgiving – he’s not been home since he moved up there). Guessing he’ll get enough time off for Xmas to justify the 10 hour bus ride.
But this is the climate triangle, you can avoid climate change, maintain the cost of goods and services, or maintain lifestyles, pick any two. Personally I mix up the latter a fair bit. I’m becoming an increasing fan of vegetarian meals, and I’ve swapped my car out for an ebike (doesn’t help get me to the bay area, but makes going out for coffee a hell of a lot more fun.)
We can ask the government to do more, and more trains, etc need to be part of that, but it also need to be to regulate a bunch of other areas. I’m of the view that vehicle over a certain mass (2t, for example) need to be reclassified as commercial vehicles, and taxed and licensed as such. There’s no substitute for lightness.
Major Major Major Major
@eclare: any lifestyle changes you make are a fart in a windstorm compared to the actual villains here, don’t feel too bad. Almonds are great.
Nelle
@raven: Yes, the man is going to respond!
Major Major Major Major
@Martin:
You really think the SJ-to-LA route will launch in 2033 (as scheduled)? Wasn’t this whole thing originally supposed to be done last year?
Martin
@topclimber: Another reason is that CA has very different emissions requirements that most gas sold in the US doesn’t meet, so in order to sell gas in CA it needs to be refined in a particular manner, so CA has its own refinery infrastructure which if it comes up short on supply causes constraints because importing gas isn’t an option (we can export it though). So if refineries are shut down, that can drive up prices here completely independently of what’s happening nationally. It creates the potential for limited market problems much as Texas’ grid isolation resulted in, so the state has to carry a lot of responsibility to keep the market operating. Also worth noting that Oregon has no refinery infrastructure so they’re often paying CA wholesale rates.
There’s two wholesale layers – one for crude oil, and then another for refined gas. The oil market tends to not have huge amounts of regional variability unless there are disruptions to distribution (basic supply chain issues). The refinery market is more complex. CA refineries can use the same oil as Texas ones, but CA gas stations can’t buy TX gasoline. This is also why it’s hard to boycott oil companies. Exxon may have extracted the oil, but someone else may have refined it and someone else yet may be selling it to you. It’s almost impossible to target any component of the industry, especially as the gas stations are almost all independently owned, so even boycotting the Exxon station only has the effect of making it a bit less likely you’re buying Exxon products.
Nelle
I’m not going to defend Iowa Ag, Iowa politics, or their horrible abuse of water. This isn’t the place I thought I would end up after living in Kansas, Nebraska, Maryland, Illinois. Wait, it gets better! Montana, Washington, Alaska, and New Zealand. We are here for family reasons and I’ve made places work, though the guv here has people talking about moving, just to get away from her Trump cheerleader act. I’ve only found a few bright spots. I’m trying to learn to find ways to love the land …or at least like it, by walking. Walking a lot. And some biking.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: I disagree. We’re going to need both personal and systemic action. At least with the personal action, you have agency. It’s a very similar problem to covid. Wearing a mask is similarly a fart in the wind relative to ending the pandemic, unless everyone does it, and then the problem is solved. Sure, you need the institutional support to develop vaccines and distribute them and enforce mandates and all that, but you also need the personal engagement. Ideally you solve the problem with just personal engagement. And I’m of the view that there’s a lot of benefit of signaling that mask wearing as a way of telling others that they should as well. A lot of these problems get solved by that kind of individual action turning into collective action simply through cultural mechanisms – shaming people for driving an SUV, etc.
I should note that this kind of thing is still quite uncommon but seems to be growing in frequency.
jonas
@Jeffro:
That’s the problem — Dems have never had, and probably never will have, the media amplification ecosystem the GOP does: Fox, the MSM, and AM talk radio that ensures that any talking point they want out there gets blasted across the country for weeks without interruption. To paraphrase a popular saying, a GOP lie about Biden can speed around the world 10 times before Ron Klain’s tweet is done putting its shoes on.
Martin
@Nelle: I wasn’t asking you to. My mom has her reasons for living there from a comparably long list of prior residences. Just giving you something you might have an opportunity to advocate for locally, that would help us out here in Cali.
Ruckus
@Martin:
I take the train to go across town to the VA hospital, a 45 mile drive. The fastest drive ever has been about 50 minutes the slowest is about 2 1/2 hrs. I live between 2 train routes in LA the Metrolink and the Metro. The first is diesel/electric – standard train, the Metro system is overhead electric, except for the subway system that is typical subway stuff, 3rd rail electric. The trip takes about 1hr 45min if you hit all the connections just right, the Metro is better for that but I can walk to the Metrolink station, which costs more. Either way is far cheaper than the gas to get there and my car is capable and has done 43 mpg doing this trip but that’s only on the non traffic trip, otherwise you are stopping and going and it’s about 25 mpg.
Also I’ve been using almond milk because I can’t do the cow stuff at all and next time I’ll try the oat milk as it looks OK on paper and is better for the planet. I went decades without milk before almond milk became widely available and have just not thought about the overall cost of it because I use so little of it.
Nelle
My uncle had an a-mond orchard (he left out the “l” because he knocked the “..ll” out of them), in Shafter, Ca. Maybe one of my cousins owns it since his death. We don’t keep in contact because they are all rabid right-wingers. Family doesn’t hold that strong.
I wish I had the power to influence anything. I can hear the resignation when I call Ernst or Grassley’s offices and they sigh and say, Hello Nelle, because they have caller ID and I call more than they like. They are most expert at using words to say nothing (when I was in Kansas, the staffers in Republican Pat Roberts office actually engaged, once inviting me in for a 45 minute discussion on an issue. These Iowa staffers are full of marshmallows).
So I do the small stuff in the community – get out the vote etc. (We did get four out of five D’s on the city council and school board in the last election. We’re trying!)
Suzanne
@ian:
Real ramen, good ramen, from a restaurant, is one of my top ten favorite meals of all time.
Fair Economist
@Martin:
What I don’t understand is why oat milk is so pricey. Pretty comparable to almond and cow. But the recipes are “add some oats to water, blend and strain”. Should be cheap as dirt on an industrial scale.
Martin
@Major Major Major Major: Maybe? Merced to Bakersfield is finally coming along pretty well. They have all of the right of way, they’ve got almost all construction at least started or in progress. It’s a LOT – at least one major construction project per mile. The sheer amount of coordination and legal work is pretty staggering, and we’re not exactly overflowing with construction crews that can do this kind of work relative to the amount of work that needs to be done.
My sense is they’re learning a LOT about how to manage upcoming phases. For those unfamiliar, the current segment was broken up into 4 construction packages, managed by 4 teams. Packages 2 and 3 were then combined (not sure they’ll do that again). We’ve not done this magnitude of eminent domain in quite some time. We’re taking an area with almost nothing but at grade rail crossings and converting nearly all of them to grade separated crossings (bridges, tunnels, viaducts), realigning roads and railroads, canals every mile or so, ag equipment crossings, and building the entire system at 10′ or more above grade because of frequent flooding in the central valley.
The next phase is dealing with multiple mountain range crossings, but much less infrastructure reworking or eminent domain, so a whole different set of problems. The last phase is like the first phase but worse – cutting through major urban areas who at least have the benefit of a lot of grade separated infrastructure, but invariably is going to relocate a LOT of homes and businesses.
I’m pretty optimistic the current phase will finish on the current schedule. I’m pretty optimistic about the next phase as mountain crossing have gotten WAY easier and more predictable in the last few decades. The last mile is gonna SUCK though.
And it’s worth acknowledging the other things happening here. Part of the HSR project was getting Caltrain modernized – electrified and new tractive units. That’s pretty huge and is happening much sooner. We’re getting some shifting of priorities here in SoCal from HSR to moving the LA metro timetable forward to be in place for the 2028 olympics. So while HSR might slip in time, we’re getting some other pretty good done in exchange.
I’m hoping CAs budget surpluses plus federal infrastructure can help things along. Elaine Chao was 4 years of undercutting what we were trying to accomplish. One thing I learned today is why the costs are going the way they are. 80% of the land value in the united states is in cities. So that red/blue county presidential voting map that is so often tossed out there by conservatives – the red counties are only 20% of the nations land value while the blue areas are 4x more. That’s also a measure of the population demand – demand to live in urban areas keeps going up, while rural areas keeps going down. That’s going to have big impacts on the cost of infrastructure projects that require land acquisition (which is almost all of them).
Martin
@Ruckus: I find it varies depending on what I use it with. Cheerios? Oat milk is hands down better. Pea milk has its place, but it’s not Cheerios. So, I can carve out some here and there, but not found a universal substitute that I like. That’s okay. We do what we can.
Martin
@Fair Economist: Should be. Hard to compete against the feds just handing you a check though. A lot of what we grow in CA grows really well elsewhere. There’s just no effort to build the infrastructure to do it. I know it doesn’t look like much, but the ag labor infrastructure in CA is nothing short of amazing. A big problem in much of the country is the farm owners just don’t give a shit – it’s just some asset they hold. I mean, the largest farm owner in the US is Bill Gates. Do you think he gives a shit if his farms grown corn or oats, or has an interest in building out processing, transportation, production of oat related products? Sure, if General Mills takes an interest it’ll happen, but also note that most of the agtech startup money comes out of CA, so it’s really biased toward stuff that CA does – and we don’t really do oats. This is not a difficult problem for IA politicians to solve, if they so desire – and they don’t.
Leto
@laura:
The Problem With the Washington Post’s Glowing Coverage of “Maternity Ranches”: As abortion clinics limit operations in Texas, one paper is spotlighting a disturbing alternative.
Obvious Russian Troll
@trollhattan: Walmarts seems to vary pretty widely. The Appalachian Walmarts near my mother-in-law’s nursing home: very nice, well-run, well-organized stores.
But others I’ve been in (including a couple here in Toronto) are just miserable shitholes.
Major Major Major Major
@Martin: oh I didn’t know they had the land use worked out, that’s great.
The new density bill will also be great for carbon stuff, apropos of nothing.
Dan B
@Ruckus: I get terrible cramps from cow’s milk and products but can do sheep and goat milk, more cheeses than the milk. I used soy milk and almond milk but like the oat milk richer feel. Do try it!
Soprano2
@Scout211: I’ve never gotten grief for wearing a mask either and I live in MO.
Soprano2
@Major Major Major Major: I’m not sure what all of you thought restaurants were going to do when they raised wages from $10/hr to $15/hr. Just eat the increase? That’s not how it works.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore: Yeah, Weigel is right–the way inflationary spirals happen is that even if people can’t afford the rising prices, they are still worried that prices will be higher later, and they have no easy way to protect the buying power of their money, so they spend now, which drives prices up. We haven’t been in this situation since about 1980.
At some point, either the Fed pulls interest rates up or it becomes obvious that supply shocks have cleared and the anxiety lessens.
Geminid
@Martin: I am glad to hear that the California’s high speed rail system is progressing. Yours is a unique state in many ways including its challenging geography. The rail system is a big investment but worth it.
The infrastructure bill’s $69 billion of investments in passenger rail includes no high speed rail money (so far as I know). It will enhance and expand conventional rail, top speed 80 mph(?). A lot will be spent on the Northeast corridor including $10 billion for tunnels under the Hudson, $4 billion for tunnels at Baltimore. Other funding will finance expansion of a service map that has been static over a time in which the nation’s population has increased by 120 million.
This will take some of the load off of air travel, some more off of road. But reducing the carbon footprint of plane travel will require mandates to phase in carbon neutral fuel in the medium term, maybe hydrogen fuel-based fuelin the long term. But I think air travel is here to stay, although higher fuel costs may suppress it some. Business travel declined a lot the past year and a half, and may stay down now that companies see how wasteful much of it was in human and other resources.
Electrification is how the carbon footprint of road travel will be reduced, particularly electric buses that are cleaner and also more secure, especially for women. Modernizing our business and social culture is neccesary for that.
Geminid
@Soprano2: People in the part of central Virginia that I live in seem to have a live-and-let live attitude towards masking (no irony intended). That’s in both liberal Charlottesville and rural Greene County. I’d guess masking rates are ~90% in the former, ~30% in the latter.