a Better Bubble™

Kevin Drum 🕸

Polling about Hunter Biden is off-the-charts insane

1 year 2 months ago
Here are the results of a new CNN/SSRN poll about Joe Biden's involvement with Hunter Biden's business dealings. I had to interpolate a few numbers because CNN inexplicably provided only some of them, but they're all pretty close. It's almost impossible to overstate how completely nuts this is. There is literally zero evidence that Joe ...continue reading "Polling about Hunter Biden is off-the-charts insane"
Kevin Drum

Raw data: Incarceration of 1st generation Latino immigrants

1 year 2 months ago
Via Tyler Cowen, a new study estimates the incarceration rate of immigrant men vs. native born Americans from 1870 to the present day. In the present context of the immigration debate we care mostly about immigrants from south of the border, so here's the chart for that: Up until 1960 male Latino immigrants had a ...continue reading "Raw data: Incarceration of 1st generation Latino immigrants"
Kevin Drum

Just stop it: Health insurance costs are rising moderately *if you adjust for inflation*

1 year 2 months ago
The Wall Street Journal has alarming news: Health-insurance costs are climbing at the steepest rate in years, walloping businesses and their workers. Costs for employer coverage are expected to surge around 6.5% for 2024, according to major benefits consulting firms Mercer and Willis Towers Watson, which provided their survey results exclusively to The Wall Street ...continue reading "Just stop it: Health insurance costs are rising moderately *if you adjust for inflation*"
Kevin Drum

Lunchtime Photo

1 year 2 months ago
This bridge was built by the Army Corps of Engineers after the 1970 flood in Silverado Canyon washed out the old bridge. It spans Silverado Creek, which is normally pretty dry but got some water during our big rains earlier this year.
Kevin Drum

What teacher shortage?

1 year 2 months ago
Over at Mother Jones, we have this headline today: The Real Crisis Driving America’s Teacher Shortage The article describes a real problem: in some areas of the country, housing is so expensive that teachers can't afford a place to live. But the premise is still wrong. There's no overall teacher shortage in the US: This ...continue reading "What teacher shortage?"
Kevin Drum

Banks are in danger of a commercial real estate “doom loop”

1 year 2 months ago
Hmmm. The Wall Street Journal says that the boom times in commercial real estate loans are now well and truly over: With the commercial real-estate market now in meltdown, those trillions of dollars in loans and investments are a looming threat for the banking industry—and potentially the broader economy. Banks’ exposure is even bigger than ...continue reading "Banks are in danger of a commercial real estate “doom loop”"
Kevin Drum

Please bullshit me

1 year 2 months ago
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"
Kevin Drum

The COVID stimulus was probably too big. But not the stimulus you’re thinking of.

1 year 2 months ago
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."
Kevin Drum

Federal court strikes down Alabama’s racist gerrymandering for a second time

1 year 2 months ago
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"
Kevin Drum