September 15

Welcome to half past September. We have had about two weeks of cool temperatures and very cool nights. I said yesterday that with those cool nights the trees would start turning colors. When we went shopping yesterday we saw that along the highway. Every year you can see the change of seasons in the trees. Spring is foretold by a shimmer of iridescent green in the willows first and then the other trees. Fall is ushered in by a yellow, orange, or red ting to the leaves which then spreads through out the canopy. Across the street, one of the houses has a pretty bush that is a glossy dark green in summer but which has turned completely red now and its companion a few feet away is beginning to turn.

In case you thought that ransomware attacks were old news take a look here. My first thought: they had really poor cyber security. Getting into my bank account requires a password and a phone call from the bank. Getting into my cell phone account requires a password and the company sending an access code to my e-mail box. All the gang had to do at MGM was find an employee by way of LinkedIn and call the help desk impersonating the person and ask for help to get into that account.

I heard last night that Fox News was facing new lawsuits and assumed that it was another defamation case. Well, Susie Madrak at Crooks & Liars covers that and the defamation situation is related but not central. Instead the New York City pension funds (read fire fighters and police) and the state of Oregon are suing because of the threat to their investments. I've never thought much of Fox and never tuned in but they deserve everything they are getting.

Jake Johnson, also at Crooks&Liars, covers the UAW strike, which started last night. I don't have a lot of sympathy for the auto companies or their executives. However, the corporate behavior is in line with what we have seen over the years. Remember when the retail industry touted their "essential workers" during the pandemic and bumped up their pay or provide "hazard pay" with a lot of fanfare. And then cut all of that very quietly as soon as they could. I don't see that any of the executives are worth 200 or 300 or 400 times their average worker's pay. I think they shouldn't get more than 10x the pay of their LOWEST paid employee. I remember an article from several years ago which took apart the justification that such pay levels are provided as an incentive to do a really good job. The authors found no linkage between job performance and remuneration: those whose company lost money got their "bonuses" and raises as did their counterparts in companies that made profits. The real incentive was provided to the lower level executives and managers who could dream of getting into those stratospheric pay levels with their golden parachutes. Few of them ever would.

Several blogs I read have had stories about a possible new U.S. central bank digital currency. The Hill carries this story which indicates the program is rather far advanced. For several years we were pretty much into  digital banking. Our retirement checks are and have for years been directly deposited. When we had to file tax returns our refunds were directly deposited. We both paid our bills on line. Then we almost got scammed and were only a couple of clicks away from having one of our accounts emptied. Since then we decided that using checks and cash for the most part is wiser. We don't really think going entirely digital is a good idea.

This doesn't sound as far out in left field as one might think. And while everyone is fixated on the abortion angle no one thinks what else might be behind the tactic. And if the notion of The-Former-Guy-desperate-to-be-the-next-guy getting to appoint every senior military officer while gutting the civil  service doesn't scare you shitless it should.