Kevin Drum 🕸

In the New York Times today, Julia Angwin talks about the various problems created by social media algorithms deciding what you see. She lists several: Yet not one of those problems is as damaging as the problem of who controls the algorithms. Never has the power to control public discourse been so completely in the ...continue reading "Who controls your media consumption?"

From the Wall Street Journal: Despite the decline in inflation since last year, families with young children still face sharp increases in one of their biggest expenses—child care. The national average price of daycare and preschool services rose 6% in July from a year before, the Labor Department reported recently. That was nearly double the ...continue reading "The cost of preschool has dropped 3% since 2019"

This is a statue of Joan of Arc outside the Église St. Augustin, a church in the 8th arrondissement of Paris. It looks like this picture has a forced perspective from being taken up close with a wide angle lens, but no. This is what the statue actually looks like. If you take a look ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Predictions of GDP growth for Q3 are all over the map right now. The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow forecast is currently at an eye-popping 5.8% while the Fed's Open Market Committee is effectively forecasting 0%.¹ Here's the range: So what's really going to happen? I sure wouldn't bet the ranch on 5.8%, but 0% seems a ...continue reading "Economic growth forecasts are wildly out of sync with each other"

Here's a quick summary of reasons to believe the economy is either heading toward recession or heading toward a soft landing. Snip it and then stick it on your refrigerator door. Bad news: Bond prices up. Housing prices high. China imploding. Fed rate hikes starting to bite. Personal savings depleted. Inverted yield curve. Good news: ...continue reading "Here’s a refrigerator list for the economy"

The Wall Street Journal says bond yields are back to normal. That is, they're rising toward old definitions of normal: 10-year Treasury yields are up 76 basis points since the beginning of April and TIPS yields (inflation protected) are up 69 basis points. This is not the first time this has happened. Yields were similarly ...continue reading "Money is getting more expensive"

This chart from John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times shows that life expectancy in the US is several years lower than Britain's at all income levels: However, the difference in UK/USA life expectancy isn't what really strikes me about this chart. Rather, it's the fact that both countries show almost identical curves based on income. ...continue reading "The rich live a lot longer than the poor"

If you withhold economic data, it means that things must be even worse than anyone can imagine: China released more bad economic news on Tuesday, but it was the number that wasn’t included in the official data dump that stood out: Beijing said it would stop publishing figures for youth unemployment, weeks after it hit ...continue reading "China is fucked"

Home Depot is bullish on inflation: Chief Executive Ted Decker said on a call with analysts Tuesday that commodity inflation in the company’s second quarter declined year over year and is down meaningfully from peak levels. Inflation in product and transportation costs is coming down, and new requests from suppliers for price increases are “negligible” ...continue reading "Home Depot says inflation is now “negligible”"

This is a view from Highway 243 on the way up the mountain toward Idyllwild. It wasn't snowing on the day I was there, but it had snowed a day or two before and the clouds were still a little bleak.

I've been more relaxed than most people about Elon Musk's changes to Twitter, but even I admit that today's news is pretty ominous. Apparently Musk has inserted a 5-second delay when you click on links to sites that he dislikes for one reason or another: The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky ...continue reading "Elon Musk takes aim once again at anyone who annoys him"

Japan and South Korea are suddenly good buddies: Having had custody of trilateral relations in GW Bush's second term, I find the meeting at Camp David mind blowing. We could barely get South Korean and Japanese leaders to meet with us in the same room. https://t.co/OrrtpJsNph — Dennis Wilder偉德寧 (@dennisw5) August 15, 2023 As they ...continue reading "Russia and China are reinvigorating global democracy"

The Hunter Biden case keeps getting weirder and weirder: The lawyer who represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses stepped down early Tuesday, saying that he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son. ....This week, Abbe Lowell, a veteran ...continue reading "Hunter Biden lawyer steps down so he can be a witness"

Here's a bonus chart from today's retail sales report. Sales of cars were up slightly, but still aren't close to their pre-pandemic level: Vehicle purchases have been increasing since late 2021 but are still about 6% below their pre-pandemic level.

Retail sales increased slightly in July, but have remained basically flat for more than two years: It's good news that retail sales aren't dropping, but that's about it. There's nothing much to see here.

We don't yet know the details, but apparently the shoe has finally dropped in the Georgia "find 11,780 votes" case. A grand jury has returned ten indictments against Donald Trump, but we won't know exactly what the charges are for another hour or two. In any case, Trump has now been impeached twice for high ...continue reading "Trump indicted in Georgia"

David Brooks has a question: Why have Americans become so mean? I was recently talking with a restaurant owner who said that he has to eject a customer from his restaurant for rude or cruel behavior once a week—something that never used to happen. A head nurse at a hospital told me that many on ...continue reading "Americans have been getting nicer over the past decade"

This is a snail on Highway 70 in Louisiana just north of Morgan City. I suppose I must have been taking a picture of something else when this caught my eye, but I don't remember what. Today's photo would have been a picture of a meteor, but I didn't get one this weekend. I put ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

National Review's jihad against electric cars continues today: There’s nothing wrong with high-end cars or electric powerplants, per se. But the idea that the U.S. auto market is forced to accept a technology that is still underdeveloped and low-scale while the year quickly approaches that auto manufacturers will be required to produce EVs primarily is ...continue reading "Is Joe Biden bullying us to buy electric cars?"

Danielle Paquette has a piece today in the Washington Post about Tony Thurman, a home security dealer in Kansas City who says business is brisk: But Thurman is troubled by what he senses is driving much of the demand: Americans’ growing preoccupation with the specter of deadly threats. They fear burglars, gangs and child predators. ...continue reading "Even a home security guy thinks we’ve gone cuckoo over security"