Kevin Drum 🕸

Today Mother Jones re-upped an interview from 2021 with Dorothy Brown, a law professor at Emory University who argues that the US tax code is rigged against Black people. The example she gives has to do with the so-called "marriage penalty," which in some cases makes taxes higher for married couples than if they had ...continue reading "The racial impact of the marriage penalty"

Do I have any readers under 30? This chart made the rounds today and I'm confused: I don't know how accurate this is, but I've seen plenty of charts like it. Here's what I don't get. It makes sense that online introductions have gone up. But that much? People still go to college, they go ...continue reading "How great is online dating?"

Here's my sorta-monthly look at how Joe Biden is polling compared to our last two presidents: Biden has dipped recently and is no longer equal to Obama and Trump at this point in their presidencies. But the differences are still at the noise level. We have not yet seen the whites of their eyes.

Here's a look at recent gasoline prices: There's really nothing to see. When we started driving less at the start of the pandemic, that reduced demand for gasoline and prices went down. At the start of the Ukraine war supplies of gasoline cratered and prices went up. Aside from that, gasoline has been pretty steadily ...continue reading "Gasoline prices are back down to normal"

This is a lovely day on Paris's Left Bank taken from the Pont Saint-Michel. The Île de la Cité is on the right.

What the actual fuck? Tainted cinnamon applesauce pouches that have sickened scores of children in the U.S. may have been purposefully contaminated with lead, according to FDA’s Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods Jim Jones. ....The agency and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have collaborated with state and local health authorities as well as ...continue reading "FDA: Applesauce was deliberately tainted with lead"

The Wall Street Journal says that the world's central bankers have won their long, brutal battle against inflation: You know, if central banks are declaring victory for getting inflation down, then they must have done something wrong to make inflation go up in the first place. Maybe they should hold off on the hosannas. Alternatively, ...continue reading "Victory over inflation!"

The BEA released price levels by state today for 2022. Here's how your state stacks up: This includes housing costs, so it's no surprise that DC and California top the list. Conversely, your dollar goes the furthest in Arkansas and Mississippi. Keep this in mind when you're deciding where to retire. Note that virtually all ...continue reading "How expensive is your state?"

Here's an interesting chart from Brian Schaffner. It's a little hard to parse, so take a look and I'll explain it below: Take a look at the left panel, for Democrats. Then, at the bottom, move over to the right to the line for people whose incomes increased $40K or more. It shows that about ...continue reading "Republicans just can’t bring themselves to acknowledge good economic news"

A couple of days ago I asked, "Where are all the tunnels?" A reader points me to a recent Wall Street Journal article that includes this map: This makes things even more mysterious. The Journal's map is several years old, but it comes from the Israeli military and presumably they have more current ones. But ...continue reading "Answered: Where are all the tunnels?"

Americans are still spending: Retail and food spending was up slightly from last month, but it's just noise. Spending hasn't dropped, but it's been basically flat for the past three years.

How are people feeling about their personal finances? Income is one way of looking at this, but balance sheets are another. That is, how much wealth do households have? Are their savings accounts flush? Are they relatively free of debt? Net worth is the simplest way of looking at this: Since the start of the ...continue reading "Household balance sheets are doing pretty well these days"

I was fiddling around with some numbers this afternoon and came up with something interesting. As you know, the BLS reports earnings for all employees and for non-managerial employees, who make up about 80% of the workforce. This makes it easy to also calculate earnings for the managerial workforce. Right now, for example, wages for ...continue reading "Managers have taken a big earnings hit over the past three years"

This is a peacock in the late afternoon sun at the LA County Arboretum. I took this photo more than five years ago! It's the oldest not-yet-used picture in my archive.

The Fed has finally acknowledged the obvious: Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged in their final policy decision of 2023 and forecast that they will cut borrowing costs three times in the coming year, a sign that the central bank is shifting toward the next phase in its fight against rapid inflation. They ought ...continue reading "Fed says it will start cutting rates next year"

In the Wall Street Journal today, Greg Ip cites a poll suggesting that President Biden has a bigger problem than inflation: Twice as many respondents named immigration as the biggest issue in next year’s election as inflation. His disapproval on the border exceeded approval by 37 percentage points, compared with 36 points for inflation. Not ...continue reading "Here’s the weird paradox of illegal immigration"

A little while ago the National Academies of Science was asked to look at the effects of social media on teenagers. They reported back today, and while they recognized the frenzy around social media they simply didn't find much evidence of harm: The committee’s review of the literature did not support the conclusion that social ...continue reading "Comprehensive report suggests little danger to teens from social media"

The Producer Price Index, a harbinger of things to come in the Consumer Price Index, was once again below zero in November: Aside from a summer spike, the PPI has been negative since early this year. This is a byproduct of the fact that inflation in goods generally has been negative: that is, prices of ...continue reading "Yet more good inflation news"

This isn't perfect. The cuts between stories are too quick; the writing is a little too formal; and the speech is just a bit flat. But those are nits. Generally speaking, this is holy shit material. How long will it be before my blog is written by a computer? See the highest quality AI footage ...continue reading "And now the news . . ."

According to the ADL, antisemitism is on the rise: There's something odd about this. After years of modest declines, there's a sudden doubling in 2016-17 and then another doubling in 2021-22. Altogether, antisemitic incidents have quadrupled over the past seven years. Does that seem plausible? Is it an artifact due to the rise of smartphones ...continue reading "Antisemitism at universities is up a lot lately. Or is it?"