Kevin Drum 🕸

We have some pretty good news on inflation today: The headline rate of PCE inflation spiked up to 4.8%, which was fully expected due to rising gasoline prices, but the core rate dropped to 1.8%. The core rate is (say it with me) the Fed's preferred measure of inflation, and it's no longer "heading toward ...continue reading "Core PCE inflation dropped below 2% in August"

Yesterday I ran across an item about the high murder rate in Washington DC. I also happened to remember this, based on the research of Marc Edwards: Beginning in the year 2000, Washington DC experienced an episode of lead contamination in its drinking water that wasn't discovered until 2004. For five years, DC's kids were ...continue reading "Lead and crime in Washington DC"

This chart is making the rounds on Twitter: A paper from a few years ago breaks this down in more detail. After a big pile o' math, here's what it tells us: Note that the bottom figure is a chart of mortality, so higher is worse. And what it shows is that our middle-aged mortality ...continue reading "Rising mortality is mostly limited to white high school dropouts"

As predicted, an appellate judge has tossed out Donald Trump's lawsuit against the trial judge in his business fraud case: The appeals court, in a terse two-page order Thursday, effectively turned aside for now a lawsuit Mr. Trump filed against the trial judge, Arthur F. Engoron. The lawsuit had sought to delay the trial, and ...continue reading "Appeals court tells Trump to buzz off"

Here's our final dome of the week, the dome of Sacré Coeur in Paris. Luckily tomorrow is catblogging day, because this is the last dome I have in my queue.

I suppose no one cares, but last night Doug Burgum said this: China controls 85 percent of the Rare Earth minerals. They’re called Rare Earth, because they’re measured in parts per million. Nah. They're measured in grams or kilograms, just like everything else. They're only called "rare" earths because they were rare 200 years ago ...continue reading "Rare earths aren’t rare"

Republicans revved up their impeachment inquiry against Joe Biden today. So how's it going? Keep in mind that these are not a bunch of spear carriers for the Biden crime family. They are the Republicans' own witnesses. 2 of GOP's witnesses at impeachment inquiry hearing say there isn't enough evidence against Joe Biden Dubinsky "More ...continue reading "Republican impeachment inquiry not going well"

Our long national nightmare is over: S. Res. 376, clarifying the dress code for the floor of the Senate, was adopted by unanimous consent. — Senate Press Gallery (@SenatePress) September 27, 2023 Pennsylvania senator John Fetterman will no longer be allowed to wear shorts and a hoodie on the floor of the Senate. Our weeklong ...continue reading "You gotta wear a tie in the Senate"

This is crazy: The Atlanta Fed's GDPNow model is still forecasting that GDP growth in Q3 will be a red hot 4.9%. It was one thing to dismiss this early in the quarter, but as the model gets more and more data to work with it becomes more accurate. At this point, Q3 is just ...continue reading "Has the economy really grown 5% in the third quarter?"

I only managed to watch half of the Republican debate tonight before I gave up. What a shitshow. The lesson they all seem to have taken from the last one is that they should yell over each other a lot. That's all I've got. During the small portion I watched I heard little aside from ...continue reading "Tonight’s Republican debate was a shitshow"

After hearing Republicans tonight talk about the supposedly epic crime wave turning America into a hellhole, it occurred to me that maybe the NCVS had been updated through 2022. And it has! Given the current parlous state of the FBI's crime figures, it's the best source we have for national crime statistics. Here's the latest: ...continue reading "Raw data: Crime is back to pre-COVID levels"

While we're all watching the latest Republican debate, I want to take the chance to repeat a chart from this morning: The actual tuition paid by college students, once you account for standard discounts, has barely changed over the past 30 years. It's up 13% at private universities and down 10% at public universities.

What dome should I put up today? How about a nuclear dome? Here are the two containment domes at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, taken on a hazy late afternoon. It's a funny thing: San Onofre was shut down a decade ago, but all the high-tension lines coming from the station are still up ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Why are Republicans declining to call for Sen. Robert Menendez to resign? The charges against him are pretty serious, after all. Aaron Blake explains: Because Republicans believe standing by Trump is politically necessary, because they really wanted Roy Moore to hold a key Senate seat, and because they need the vote of Rep. George Santos ...continue reading "Republicans can’t afford to attack Robert Menendez"

I suppose everyone is tired of me posting this chart, but sometimes I feel like I should put it up every day: Joe Biden's approval level is totally normal for this point in time. He's a few points less popular than Bill Clinton was at 140 weeks, but that's it. Everything is fine.

ChatGPT can now hold ordinary spoken conversations with people, and apparently it works pretty well. It can also talk about pictures you show it. And this: ChatGPT can now browse the internet to provide you with current and authoritative information, complete with direct links to sources. It is no longer limited to data before September ...continue reading "ChatGPT is no longer stuck in the past"

I have had my mind blown. Over at National Affairs, Dan Currell says that college tuition hasn't actually gone up over the past few decades: In the late 1980s and early 1990s, colleges discovered that the appearance of high tuition was good for marketing. Positioning one's school as "almost as expensive as Harvard" created a ...continue reading "The cost of college has barely changed in the past 30 years"

In case you've forgotten, Donald Trump has more than just his four criminal trials to contend with. There's also a continuing civil trial over his sexual assault on E. Jean Carroll, as well as yet another civil case brought by New York's attorney general over years of business fraud by Trump and his two adult ...continue reading "Trump & Sons guilty of fraudulently inflating property values"

Over at National Review, Noah Rothman takes on the question of why so many people don't believe the Biden economy is actually pretty good. His answer is simple: It's because the Biden economy isn't pretty good, and the only ones who don't get that are sheltered elites who obsess over BLS statistics. Ordinary people, for ...continue reading "“Americans” don’t think the economy is bad. Republicans do."

Let's make this dome week. Yesterday I featured the observatory dome of the 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar, so today is something completely different: the glass dome of the Galleries Lafayette department store in Paris. This picture was taken from directly below the dome, and it's actually a panorama stitched together in Photoshop. I couldn't ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"