Kevin Drum 🕸

The Fed has finally acknowledged the obvious: Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged in their final policy decision of 2023 and forecast that they will cut borrowing costs three times in the coming year, a sign that the central bank is shifting toward the next phase in its fight against rapid inflation. They ought ...continue reading "Fed says it will start cutting rates next year"

In the Wall Street Journal today, Greg Ip cites a poll suggesting that President Biden has a bigger problem than inflation: Twice as many respondents named immigration as the biggest issue in next year’s election as inflation. His disapproval on the border exceeded approval by 37 percentage points, compared with 36 points for inflation. Not ...continue reading "Here’s the weird paradox of illegal immigration"

A little while ago the National Academies of Science was asked to look at the effects of social media on teenagers. They reported back today, and while they recognized the frenzy around social media they simply didn't find much evidence of harm: The committee’s review of the literature did not support the conclusion that social ...continue reading "Comprehensive report suggests little danger to teens from social media"

The Producer Price Index, a harbinger of things to come in the Consumer Price Index, was once again below zero in November: Aside from a summer spike, the PPI has been negative since early this year. This is a byproduct of the fact that inflation in goods generally has been negative: that is, prices of ...continue reading "Yet more good inflation news"

This isn't perfect. The cuts between stories are too quick; the writing is a little too formal; and the speech is just a bit flat. But those are nits. Generally speaking, this is holy shit material. How long will it be before my blog is written by a computer? See the highest quality AI footage ...continue reading "And now the news . . ."

According to the ADL, antisemitism is on the rise: There's something odd about this. After years of modest declines, there's a sudden doubling in 2016-17 and then another doubling in 2021-22. Altogether, antisemitic incidents have quadrupled over the past seven years. Does that seem plausible? Is it an artifact due to the rise of smartphones ...continue reading "Antisemitism at universities is up a lot lately. Or is it?"

This is just a bit of trivia, but Bob Somerby mentioned something odd today about the House committee that the odious Elise Stefanik sits on. Here's what their website looks like: All the Republicans get nice color photos. The Democrats get crammed into a tiny space with just their names. Seriously? Unless there's some obscure ...continue reading "A House committee displays its partisan pettiness for all the world to see"

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Israeli army is beginning its destruction of the Vast Labyrinth™ of tunnels underneath Gaza: Israel’s military has begun pumping seawater into Hamas’s vast complex of tunnels in Gaza, according to U.S. officials briefed on the Israeli military’s operations, part of an intensive effort to destroy the underground infrastructure ...continue reading "Where are all the tunnels?"

As you know, our little blue planet is part of the Milky Way galaxy. The Milky Way, in turn, is part of the Local Group, which includes two other major galaxies: Andromeda and Triangulum. A group is a collection of galaxies that are close enough to be gravitationally attracted, which means that in a few ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

A few days ago the International Institute for Strategic Studies released the 2023 edition of its Armed Conflict Survey: The Armed Conflict Survey 2023 continues to capture a world dominated by increasingly intractable conflicts and armed violence amid a proliferation of actors, complex and overlapping motives, global influences and accelerating climate change. This is not ...continue reading "Most of the world is pretty peaceful"

Aid to Ukraine and Israel (and Taiwan) is being held up because Republicans are demanding that the aid be tied to border security changes. As best I can figure out, these are their demands: Restart construction of the wall. Make asylum harder to get by tightening the standard for "credible fear." Give the president power ...continue reading "Time for a deal on the border?"

If it's inflation day, it's also earnings day. And earnings increased nicely in November: These are both pretty good numbers: high enough to mean real gains for workers—especially after the big August decline—but not so high that it's likely to worry the Fed too much. Since the start of the pandemic, overall wages are now ...continue reading "Hourly earnings increased nicely in November"

Today is inflation day, and the news was generally good. Both CPI and core CPI were a little higher than last month but still in pretty good shape: The core rate of CPI has been rising a bit since its low point in June, but even at that it's still only running at 3.5%. That's ...continue reading "CPI remains low in November"

The latest version of "No, you are" comes from Allysia Finley, a member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board, who says that Biden is the real dictator. Her evidence is the usual farrago of right-wing nonsense: Biden signed some executive orders she doesn't like; he put in place some protections from oil drilling that ...continue reading "Who’s the real dictator here?"

This is Agathla Peak in Arizona. According to our friends at Wikipedia, it is an "eroded volcanic plug consisting of volcanic breccia cut by dikes of an unusual igneous rock called minette." It is one of many such volcanic diatremes that are found in Navajo country of northeast Arizona and northwest New Mexico. The English ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The New York Times has an interesting piece today about pedestrian deaths in the US. As I've noted before—along with lots of others—US pedestrian fatalities decreased for decades but then suddenly turned around in 2010. Since then fatalities have continued to drop in other countries but have increased about 50% in the US. Why? The ...continue reading "Are pedestrians at fault for increasing pedestrian deaths?"

Over at New York, John Herrman tries to figure out what the heck Elon Musk is doing with Twitter. Along the way he notes this: "After bone-deep layoffs, the company is still bleeding talent." That reminds me: When Musk took over Twitter he immediately fired half the employees, including an astonishing number of engineers. In ...continue reading "Twitter seems just fine these days"

In my post yesterday about the past 20 years of horrific Israeli behavior I noted that "There are reasons things have turned out this way, many of them the responsibility of Arab nations and the Palestinians themselves." Unsurprisingly, many people asked just exactly what part of the historical record could explain or justify Israeli conduct. ...continue reading "A brief history of modern Palestine"

The Wall Street Journal reprises yet again Jerome Powell's great dilemma: Inflation has fallen faster this year than many Fed officials anticipated after a hair-raising series of rate increases that none of them envisioned two years ago. The big questions now are about when the Fed can start cutting rates and by how much. The ...continue reading "Whatever shall the Fed do???"

To a lot of oldsters like me, the depth and extremity of campus support for the Palestinian cause—and its attendant hatred of Israel—can be inexplicable. But it's not that hard to understand. If you were born after 1990 or so, your experience of Israel and the Palestinians is not 75 years old, with everything that ...continue reading "Seeing Israel through young eyes"