Kevin Drum 🕸

Donald Trump's trial for business fraud has opened on schedule. The New York Times provides a summary of the action so far: In their respective opening statements, the attorney general’s office and lawyers for Donald J. Trump spoke past each other: While the attorney general’s lawyer focused on the specific mechanics by which properties were ...continue reading "Donald Trump’s fraud trial is proceeding apace"

In the New York Times today, Margaret Renkl rails against book banning: During the 2022-2023 school year, PEN America, an advocacy organization that defends free expression, recorded 3,362 instances of book banning, a number that represents an increase of 33 percent in just one year....Book bans belong to the same categorical crime against democracy as ...continue reading "No book has been banned in the United States for more than half a century"

The Wall Street Journal says American consumers are spending lots of money on big blowouts: Household spending, the primary driver of the nation’s economic growth, remains robust. Americans spent 5.8% more in August than a year earlier, well outstripping less than 4% inflation. ....Economists and financial advisers say consumers putting short-term needs and goals above ...continue reading "Are Americans splurging more? I doubt it."

Celebrity author Michael Lewis spent months shadowing Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the failed crypto exchange FTX, and apparently came away convinced that SBF was just the victim of misfortune: This isn't a Ponzi scheme. Like, when you think of a Ponzi scheme, I don't know, Bernie Madoff, the problem is— there's no real business there. ...continue reading "Sam Bankman-Fried: “Plain old embezzlement”"

I mentioned the other day that I was curious about the net illegal immigration rate into the US. This would be (roughly) the number of border crossings minus repatriations and people going home of their own accord. The Border Patrol doesn't provide anything like this, but there's a way of getting at it. Several organizations ...continue reading "What’s the real rate of illegal immigration?"

Yesterday Rep. Jamaal Bowman triggered a fire alarm in the Cannon Office Building. He says it was because he was heading out to the Capitol Building to vote on the continuing resolution to keep the government open. The door he used is normally open, but on Saturday it was locked and had a confusing sign ...continue reading "Rep. Bowman is innocent"

Great moments in financial analysis from Tom Bevan: Academics & economists: We can't understand why people don't think the economy is great. WSJ: Rise in prices from Dec 2019 to Aug 2023: Gallon of milk: +12.5% New car: +29.9% Dozen eggs: +32.5% Gasoline: +49.4% Let's expand our view a bit: If you cherry pick and ...continue reading "Raw data: Inflation hasn’t hurt most people"

Yesterday was my last day on Obamacare. As of October 1, I'm officially a Medicare beneficiary. In other words, I am old.

Go get 'em, Matt: .@SpeakerMcCarthy is going to get his wish. I’m going to file a motion to vacate against him this week. If at this time next week Kevin McCarthy is still Speaker of the House, it will be because the Democrats bailed him out. He can be their Speaker, not mine. pic.twitter.com/ITlcwynY39 — ...continue reading "Gaetz says he’s going to oust McCarthy as Speaker"

Language nerds have long railed against the use of podium to refer to the thing you stand behind when you're talking to people. That's a lectern, dammit. But no, language nerds! According to the folks at Merriam-Webster it's perfectly OK to call that thing a podium, and has been for half a century. Why do ...continue reading "A quick weekend primer on Podiumgate"

For some reason, this question has suddenly become the new hotness among economists. But why? Paul Krugman notes that bond yields were pretty steady for a while in late 2022 and early 2023: Over the past few months, however, the bond market has, in effect, capitulated, sending the signal that investors expect rates to stay ...continue reading "Will interest rates stay high forever?"

It looks like there will be no government shutdown. Kevin McCarthy caved in at the last minute and submitted a "clean" 45-day continuing resolution in the House. Clean enough, anyway. Every Democrat but one voted for it and it passed by a huge margin, 335-91. Now it goes to the Senate, where it should pass ...continue reading "Government shutdown averted as McCarthy caves"

A regular reader asks if I can post a chart of gasoline prices over my lifetime. Of course. In fact, I can do better: I was born right in the middle of that warm postwar summer of ever-declining gasoline prices—which ended abruptly in 1973 with the first oil embargo. And then again in 1979 with ...continue reading "Raw data: Gasoline during my lifetime"

New York City is suffering through yet another thousand-year flood.¹ They sure seem to happen more often than once every millennium, don't they? Based on some probably unreliable googling here and there, here's how many we've had recently in the US: Take a look at the trendline: In a very short time the number of ...continue reading "New York is the third “Thousand-Year” flood in 2023 (so far)"

Things haven't been going well for Team Trump in the Georgia election fraud case. Several attempts to move the trial into federal court have failed, and today one of the co-defendants broke ranks and agreed to a plea deal: Scott Hall, a 59-year-old bail bondsman from the Augusta area who prosecutors alleged played a wide-ranging ...continue reading "In Georgia, one down and 18 to go"

Over at National Review, Jeffrey Blehar says he's stunned at how decrepit Joe Biden has become. It was bad enough two years ago, but: That was in 2021 — the man practically looks whipcrack-smart and youthful by comparison with today. The decay from that day to now (even just the public collapse from early 2023 ...continue reading "Joe Biden sounded fine during his speech yesterday"

Here is Charlie on the landing of our stairway. He likes to sit here so that he can keep track of everyone who goes up and down.

Back in 2015 Jake Tapper moderated a Republican primary debate in which nearly every question was framed in terms of something "Donald Trump recently said..." And this was back when Trump wasn't even leading in the polls and certainly wasn't a former president. Today there's way more justification for doing this, but instead it's disappeared ...continue reading "Trump shills should be forced to defend Trump"

The Washington Post tells us today about Jennifer Petersen, a Virginia mother who's a serial book challenger. She has so far challenged 73 books in the Spotsylvania school district, all for sexual content. The Post confirmed that this had nothing to do with race or sexual orientation: Petersen objects to any book containing graphic descriptions ...continue reading "Sexually explicit YA books lead to . . . less teen sex?"

If it's PCE inflation day, it must also be PCE spending day. So how much did consumers spend last month? Spending was up 0.6% from the previous month on an annualized basis. It was up 2.3% from the previous year. So spending continues to increase. Not by much, though.