Kevin Drum 🕸

Alex Tabarrok and Robert Tucker Omberg have published a new paper which confirms a thought that's been rattling around in my head for a while. The thought is this: aside from vaccines, pretty much nothing has much effect on the spread of COVID-19. As usual, I'll lead with a couple of charts. The first one ...continue reading "New study says pandemic preparedness is mostly futile"

I'm probably going to regret this, but L'Affair Bostrom has intrigued me. Here's the background. Nick Bostrom is a professor of philosophy at Oxford University who did something unfortunate 26 years ago: he engaged in an online conversation with a bunch of other 23-year-olds on an email listserv. The topic was communication styles, and Bostrom ...continue reading "Why are online apologies never accepted?"

A reader asked me today to explain my analogy of inflation to the law of gravity. It's simple. Here's a picture of an airplane. Lift is providing an upward acceleration of 2 meters/sec², so everything is hunky dory. But wait. We need to adjust for the downward force of gravity: Once we've done that, the ...continue reading "Here’s how inflation is like gravity"

Here is a headline today in the Wall Street Journal: Shopper Rebellion Against Higher Prices Helps Slow Inflation Indeed? Let's investigate how this rebellion against inflation is manifesting itself: Conagra Brands Inc., which makes Hunt’s ketchup and Slim Jim meat sticks, raised prices 17% in its latest quarter, on top of two previous quarters, when ...continue reading "The “rebellion” against inflation is about more than just inflation"

Rain, rain, rain. We'll have more water in April when the snowpack melts, but our streams and rivers and flood channels are already filling up (temporarily) from our recent bomb cyclones and atmospheric rivers. This particular one is a stream that flows down alongside Mt. Baldy Road. Further up the mountain there's another picturesque bunch ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

In the Wall Street Journal yesterday, James Mackintosh put up the following chart: I don't get it. Why would you deliberately put up a chart that ignores inflation? It's like ignoring the law of gravity. "If you don't count the effect of gravity, our plane is ascending nicely. Oops." Here is the 20-year total return ...continue reading "Annual fund returns can look great if you don’t count inflation"

Today's blog/Twitter/column categories: For anyone: Quote Martin Luther King Jr. so you can acknowledge MLK Day without doing any real work. Repeat his belief that Chicago was worse than the South. Print an entire speech/work. "Birmingham Jail" and "I Have a Dream" are the favorites, but less prominent speeches/works can show sophistication. The Riverside Church ...continue reading "How to honor Martin Luther King Jr. online"

Here are average weekly earnings for full-time workers: Since 2000, men's earnings have gone up 0.16% ($2) per year in real terms. Since 2019, men's earnings have gone down 0.08% ($1) per year. Since 2000, women's earnings have gone up 0.67% ($6) per year in real terms . Since 2019, women's earnings have gone up ...continue reading "Raw data: Earnings of full-time workers"

As preparation for my leukopheresis next month, when T-cells will be extracted from my bloodsteam, my body needs to be cleaned up as much as possible. That means stopping the chemo treatments. Hooray! But yesterday I learned that it also means stopping the Evil Dex™. Doubleplus hooray! I already feel a little better, and within ...continue reading "Health and astronomy update"

On Monday, CBS News published a report saying that "a small number" of classified documents had been discovered while cleaning out Joe Biden's old office at the Penn Biden Center. Subsequent reports put the number of documents at about ten. On Wednesday, NBC News reported that more classified documents had been found in Biden's garage ...continue reading "About that nothingburger . . ."

A new study is out that tries to measure the effectiveness of social media advertising campaigns in political races. The unique part of this study is that it makes use of an actual advertising campaign during the 2020 presidential contest that deliberately held out a control group so that its effectiveness could be measured: We ...continue reading "Social media can be pretty effective in political contests"

I must be missing something here. The Washington Post reports that Republicans are getting ready to pass a bill that mandates precisely how the Treasury Department handles a breach of the debt ceiling. In particular, it would specify which bills have to be paid and which can be blown off. The must-pay bills are likely ...continue reading "Republicans are developing a clever plan to shoot themselves in the foot"

There's a truly remarkable story unfolding in Pittsburgh right now. About a year ago the city council passed a bill instructing police to stop pulling over drivers for eight specific minor offenses: Expired tags within 60 days Technical violation of temporary permit display Loose license plate Single broken light Stickers on windshield or hanging from ...continue reading "Pittsburgh police tell city council to pound sand"

Hilbert is such a magnificent cat.

Here's the difference between political junkies and normal people: Me, political junkie: Can you believe this shit? Gas stoves! They think we're going to take their gas stoves away from them. What a bunch of lunatics. This been going on for almost a week now just because some bureaucrat made a comment about gas being ...continue reading "There are two kinds of people in the world"

As a bit of stretching before the real workout, here's a 10,000 foot view of federal spending in FY22: The federal deficit in FY22 was $1.4 trillion and we're supposed to get that down to zero. The rules are that (a) you can't raise taxes, and (b) you can't cut defense. Other than that, swing ...continue reading "Let’s balance the budget"

CNN has infiltrated deep into the bowels of the Republican Party to return this stunning scoop about their priorities for the coming year: A slide shown in GOP Conference meeting showed the budget and spending priorities for the 118th Congress, including tying the debt ceiling to spending cuts pic.twitter.com/9h1EVQT9ku — Annie Grayer (@AnnieGrayerCNN) January 10, ...continue reading "BREAKING: Stunning Republican budget plan revealed!"

From National Review's Jim Geraghty: Apparently, the leadership of the University of Southern California’s Suzanne Dworak-Peck School of Social Work decided to “remove the term ‘field’ from our curriculum and practice and replace it with ‘practicum,’” declaring, “this change supports anti-racist social work practice by replacing language that would be considered anti-Black or anti-immigrant in ...continue reading "What do the words “labor” and “field” have in common? Nope, try again . . ."

From Speaker Kevin McCarthy, reminded that serial liar George Santos fabricated big chunks of his resume: So did a lot of people here in the Senate. Do tell! Let's name names, please.

This is a nice, shaggy horse in Modjeska Canyon lit by the late afternoon sun. I have no idea what kind of horse this is, or if there's anything special about it. But it's a pretty critter.