Detection of the COVID-19 virus in wastewater has doubled since June: Hi US friends- there is a clear rise in SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, suggesting a rise in cases and all the things that accompany that (https://t.co/FQPYUBJSxj). A reminder of some things you can (still) do to help reduce the risk of COVID: 1. Ensure you ...continue reading "COVID in wastewater has doubled since June"
Today the New York Times reports that it's not just AI that's finally becoming a reality. It's also robots: Use of robots by big brands, retailers and movers of goods accelerated significantly after 2019. According to the Association for Advancing Automation, robot orders in North America jumped 42 percent during the pandemic after essentially being ...continue reading "Robots are taking jobs from workers who aren’t working anymore"
Donald Trump's PAC wants a refund from Donald Trump's super PAC: The political action committee that has been paying former President Donald J. Trump’s legal fees requested a refund on a $60 million contribution it made to the super PAC supporting the Republican front-runner, according to two people familiar with the matter. ....The refund was ...continue reading "Trump is spending $1.5 million per week in legal fees"
The Wall Street Journal says today that the US economy is "sticking" its soft landing: Parts of the economy are cooling, just as the Federal Reserve would like to see to combat inflation. Freight railroads, for instance, are seeing shipping volumes decline. Construction firms are cutting back on equipment purchases. A vending-machine company’s customers are ...continue reading "Economy watch: Hires are down, fires are up"
Here is Hilbert lounging on an antique bureau behind the fan that I use to keep cool in bed. I was playing around with the flash unit, which stops the motion of the fan, so I had to take a lot of pictures to get a few where a fan blade wasn't blocking the view. ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 28 July 2023"
The Wall Street Journal reports today that in 2021 Facebook removed posts saying COVID-19 was the result of a lab leak. This was done due to "pressure" from "the administration and others." There's no indication of what that pressure entailed, but in a similar case involving vaccine hesitancy it appears to have been public comments ...continue reading "Facebook says it was under “pressure” over lab leak posts"
Lots of new numbers today. By coincidence, the PCE figures were released the same day as the latest quarterly reading of the Employment Cost Index. According to the ECI, real wages were up at an annualized rate of 1.3% in Q2 but still well below their pre-pandemic level: In most measures of wages, we see ...continue reading "Wages are up, but still below their pre-pandemic level"
Consumer spending grew at an annualized rate of 4.7% in June but remained well below its pre-pandemic trend: Since the start of the year, spending has increased only 0.65%, an annualized rate of 1.3%. That's a big slowdown from the 4.4% annual rate of the previous two years.
PCE inflation figures were released this morning and they're nothing but good news: The Fed likes to look at the core PCE rate, and in June it finally fell significantly. It's now running at an annualized rate of 2.0%, which is right at the Fed's target. The headline rate is also running at 2.0%. On ...continue reading "Inflation drops to 2%, hitting Fed goal"
Social networks mostly have two different kinds of feeds: one that's a simple reverse chronological listing of posts from people you follow, and another that's controlled by an algorithm. On Twitter, users are forever complaining that the platform switches them to the algorithm without asking, and I imagine Facebook is the same. But why? A ...continue reading "Why does Facebook want you to be on their algorithmic feed?"
David Broder has a good piece in the New York Times today about the extremist right-wing government that's now running Italy. Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni has certainly moderated her rhetoric since being elected, he says, but underneath you'll still find the same old animating radicalism. This is particularly true of her government's animus toward migrants, ...continue reading "Italy’s problem with migrants is everybody’s problem"
There's lots of talk about the skyrocketing amount of manufacturing being built lately, and with good reason: Manufacturing construction is nearly flat from 1980-2015. Then there was a modest increase. But since 2021 it's nearly doubled, thanks mostly to the infrastructure bill, IRA, and the CHIPS Act. Presumably manufacturing employment will also increase once all ...continue reading "Raw data: Manufacturing construction since 1960"
Large language AIs like ChatGPT train themselves on vast amounts of information hoovered up from every corner of the internet: "In the absence of meaningful privacy regulations, that means that people can scrape really widely all over the internet, take anything that is ‘publicly available’ — that top layer of the internet for lack of ...continue reading "Do AIs use too much of your personal data?"
The GDP report this morning was OK, but the BEA also released its estimate of personal income today. Adjusted for inflation, it increased at an annualized rate of 1.0% in Q2. Since the start of the pandemic it's up a total of 0.9%: Not so great. Inflation numbers come out tomorrow.
The BEA released its first estimate of GDP growth in Q2 and there were no surprises. It was up a respectable 2.4%: GDP growth was mostly due to increased consumer spending and nonresidential investment. For those predicting a soft landing, this was good news.
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