The Supreme Court has upheld Congress's demand that TikTok either sell itself to an American owner or shut down. How do I know? Because the New York Times has treated this event with about the same world-historical banner-headline flood-the-zone gravity as 9/11. As of 1:30 pm, they had written 14 separate pieces about it by ...continue reading "New York Times floods the zone on TikTok ruling"
Housing starts spiked upward in December: This is more good news for the beginning of the Trump administration. Over the past two years housing starts have averaged 140,000 per year higher than the pre-pandemic average from his first term. In other good news, the Atlanta Fed is now forecasting 3% GDP growth in the final ...continue reading "Housing starts surge in December"
Do we have a spending problem or a revenue problem? You be the judge: This includes everything: defense, welfare, Social Security, Medicare, interest on the debt, etc. In 2019, spending was exactly the same as it was in 1980. Revenue was down by two percentage points. After that we had a huge spike in spending ...continue reading "Do we have a spending problem or a revenue problem?"
Matt Yglesias is reading Middlemarch, and it turns out that a minor plot point in the novel is about the construction of a London-Birmingham railroad that will go through Middlemarch. Not everyone is happy about this, but as one of the book's characters explains, there's no use fighting because the law is on the railroad's ...continue reading "Who gets to decide what stuff we build?"
When Joe Biden became president he directed immigration officials to focus their arrest and removal efforts on criminals, national security threats, and recent border crossers. Here's the guidance DHS issued a few weeks after inauguration: This didn't restrict the removal of illegal immigrants, which was far higher under Biden than Trump: That's from David Bier, ...continue reading "Here’s a comprehensive look at Biden and the border"
This is San Gorgonio Mountain, tallest peak in the Transverse Ranges at 11,503 feet. This picture was taken back in the olden days when it rained and snowed here in Southern California. Not anymore. Even the tall mountains are pretty dry these days.
With 2024 wrapped up, it's time to check in with the Washington Post to find out how many unarmed Black suspects were shot by police last year: The good news is that only ten unarmed Black suspects were shot. That's a small number and an all-time low. The bad news is that this number is ...continue reading "Last year police shot ten unarmed Black suspects"
After adjusting for inflation, retail sales were up 1% on an annualized basis in December, continuing a streak of increases in the second half of 2024:
CBP recorded 96,048 southwest border encounters in December, a slight increase over November: Of these, 47,000 were people trying to cross the border illegally and 49,000 were asylum seekers who showed up at ports of entry.
What? President Joe Biden’s administration is considering ways to keep TikTok available in the United States if a ban that’s scheduled to go into effect Sunday proceeds, according to three people familiar with the discussions. ....Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming national security adviser, told Fox News on Wednesday that Trump is ready to intervene to preserve ...continue reading "Suddenly everyone loves TikTok"
The New York Times reported yesterday on that most tedious of topics: the fact that BMI isn't a perfect measure of obesity. And sure, it isn't. Nothing is. But I'm willing to bet it's a pretty good ballpark metric about 95% of the time. In any case, an enormous team of specialists has spent years ...continue reading "Obesity gets a brand new definition"
I've recovered from all the side effects of the Talvey trial in September—or so I thought. One of the odder side effects listed on the package insert was that it could wreck your fingernails. And it has. It was just an extremely delayed effect, presumably because fingernails grow slowly. About a week ago I noticed ...continue reading "Health update"
I don't know what this is, but if it were a thousand times bigger it might be a sandworm from Dune. If sandworms had flowers growing out of themselves, that is.
Here's an odd thing from today's inflation report: It was driven largely by increases in the price of gasoline, which was up 4.4% from November according to the BLS. But I don't recall an increase in gasoline prices. And sure enough, if you check with the Energy Information Administration, the price of gasoline was down ...continue reading "December’s high inflation is all due to a statistical quirk"
California Gov. Gavin Newsom has announced that permitting will be streamlined for anyone rebuilding a home after the LA fires. For some reason conservatives are taking a weird victory lap over this, which is kind of crazy. Have they ever paid attention to a natural disaster in California before? Permitting is always streamlined. And for ...continue reading "Streamline rebuilding after the LA fires? Yes but . . ."
Joe Biden finally has a ceasefire deal in Gaza, and of course Donald Trump is taking credit for it: We have achieved so much without even being in the White House. Just imagine all of the wonderful things that will happen when I return to the White House. Sure, whatever. My guess is that Hamas ...continue reading "With Gaza in rubble, we finally have a ceasefire"
Today's CPI report has good news and bad news. The bad news is that headline CPI spiked up to 4.8% in December. The good news is that this was due largely to gasoline and fuel oil. Core CPI dropped to 2.7%. On a conventional year-over-year basis, headline CPI came in at 2.9% and core CPI ...continue reading "In December, CPI was way up, core CPI was way down"
This is from a US senator: This week, left wingers in Britain are rushing to give away a strategic U.S. military base in the Indian Ocean before Pres. Trump takes office and could stop the deal. Pres. Biden is going along. Ignoring the potential of war increases its likelihood. — John Kennedy (@SenJohnKennedy) January 14, ...continue reading "Sigh. Nobody is giving away our Diego Garcia base."
A couple of months I was talking with a friend about just how crazy Donald Trump's cabinet appointments might get. I argued that there was an outer boundary, especially in roles that Republicans really care about. "For example," I said, "plenty of Republicans on the Armed Services Committee are serious about the military. There's a ...continue reading "The Senate is treating the military as a clown show"
Donald Trump is blabbering about tariffs again: Fine. Call it anything you want. But I wonder if Trump really believes he's creating something new. Does he know that we already have an agency that collects tariffs? It's the C in CBP, Customs and Border Protection. Speaking of which, here's what they have to say about ...continue reading "Trump creates federal department that already exists"
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