Kevin Drum 🕸

In Zeke Faux's new book, Number Go Up, Sam Bankman-Fried explains how cryptocurrency works: A day before the start of the Bahamas conference, Bankman-Fried had all but admitted that much of his industry was built on bullshit. During an interview on Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast, the columnist Matt Levine asked a straightforward question about a ...continue reading "Please bullshit me"

Was our pandemic stimulus too big? Paul Krugman says yes, but doubts it would have made much difference if it had been smaller. I'm not sure I agree. Total stimulus amounted to roughly $6 trillion. The Obama stimulus package during the Great Recession was around $1 trillion. I think it's safe to say that the ...continue reading "The COVID stimulus was probably too big. But not the stimulus you’re thinking of."

I know that you probably get tired of hearing me whine about innumeracy in the media, but every time I think I'm out they pull me back in. Here is the Guardian today: Global cases of early onset cancer increased from 1.82 million in 1990 to 3.26 million in 2019, while cancer deaths of adults ...continue reading "Cancer deaths in the young are down by a quarter since 1990"

Here's the latest from the Washington Post: Wait. Pickleball shoes?

This is a skipper butterfly photographed in the bright midday sun in our front yard.

Rachel Cohen asks: Is public school as we know it ending? Private school vouchers lost a lot of battles, but they may have won the war. Here's the growth of vouchers over the past 30 years: You can interpret this in two ways. First, after three decades vouchers still account for only about one-half of ...continue reading "Raw data: Vouchers account for 0.6% of all school enrollment"

Last year a federal court told Alabama that its congressional map was racially gerrymandered and "it's not close." They ordered the legislature to redraw its map so it would include two majority Black districts instead of one, and the Supreme Court upheld the ruling earlier this year. Republicans in Alabama responded very simply: they told ...continue reading "Federal court strikes down Alabama’s racist gerrymandering for a second time"

The New York Times notes today that Medicare spending has flattened out over the past decade. They say that no one knows why its spending growth is now so low, but I'd put it differently. Here is medical inflation over the past 50 years: The growth of medical spending has not always been sky high. ...continue reading "Health care inflation has been low for more than 20 years"

Dean Baker pointed me today to a very peculiar chart: Why peculiar? According to the Conference Board, job satisfaction declined steadily and by a large amount for more than 20 years from 1987-2010. Then it abruptly turned around and has risen steadily and by a large amount for the past 12 years from 2010-2022. Why ...continue reading "We are getting ever happier with our jobs"

Here in California, state senator Aisha Wahab has introduced a bill to add caste to the list of groups protected from discrimination. It was subsequently watered down thanks to efforts from two members of the Assembly, Evan Low and Alex Lee. All three represent Silicon Valley, where nearly every immigrant Indian hails from one of ...continue reading "Caste bigotry is alive and well in Silicon Valley"

This is the famous Capitol Records building on Vine Street in Los Angeles just north of Hollywood Boulevard.

Jeff Stein in the Washington Post has an alarming story about the federal deficit that comes with this chart: I was all ready to lay into this because the numbers seemed wrong. The CBO's most recent estimates for the federal deficit were $1.4 trillion in 2022 and $1.5 trillion in 2023. That's an increase of ...continue reading "Yes, the deficit really did double in 2023, but . . ."

The Wall Street Journal asked Republican voters what they thought of the economy over the past year: Here's the actual data for the past 12 months: Real GDP: Up 2.5% Inflation: CPI down from 8.4% to 3.3% Jobs: Up 3 million Stock Market: S&P 500 up 10% Housing: Median home price down 7% In fairness, ...continue reading "Republicans refuse to believe the economy has improved"

E.J. Dionne says labor is cool again: Young Americans are the country’s most pro-union generation. Labor has poll ratings most politicians only dream about, and the Biden administration is making workers’ pay, benefits and rights its calling card. ....Heralds of change include well-publicized organizing efforts in new sectors of the economy, broad public sympathy for ...continue reading "Raw data for Labor Day: Union wages are way down over the past two years"

You've probably heard that wages have lately been going up faster for the poor than for the affluent. It's true: Don't make too much of this, however. As you can see, nearly everyone is within about 1% of their pre-pandemic wages. The only exception is the very poorest, who are up 6%. But it's worth ...continue reading "Pay is up $32 for the very poorest"

Over at National Review the question of the day is whether President Biden will be impeached: Rich Lowry: So let’s go to you, Phil Klein. Give us percentage odds Republicans will impeach Joe Biden one way or the other. Phil Klein: I’d say about 70 percent that they’ll impeach him. Charlie Cooke: I think it ...continue reading "Will Joe Biden be impeached?"

Bridgette Exman, an assistant superintendent in Mason City, Iowa, describes how she tried to comply with her state's new law banning books in schoolrooms that contain “descriptions or visual depictions of a sex act”: We created a list from several lists of commonly challenged books, then deleted from our list any book challenged for reasons ...continue reading "ChatGPT can help find the racy passages in popular fiction"

Last week I showed you Hilbert rolling around, so this week you get a picture of Charlie rolling around. This is one of his (many) favorite spots, up on a cabinet in our kitchen where he can keep an eye on us and stay near the food bowl. A tummy rub is all it takes ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 1 September 2023"

I happened to come across some whinging about federal spending earlier this morning and it prompted me to draw this chart: This is all the spending we have control over. Mandatory spending is mostly Social Security and Medicare but contains a chunk of other stuff too. Discretionary spending is defense and domestic spending that's appropriated ...continue reading "We can fix all our problems for 2.7% of GDP"

This is completely ridiculous: More than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned, many conservatives have grown frustrated by the number of people able to circumvent antiabortion laws — with some advocates grasping for even stricter measures they hope will fully eradicate abortion nationwide. That frustration is driving a new strategy in heavily conservative ...continue reading "Abortion is legal in California. Texas zealots need to get over it."