Kevin Drum 🕸

Good ol' Larry Agran has been part of progressive Irvine politics for more than 40 years. With the exception of a hiatus during the 90s, he's been either mayor or a city council member practically the entire time. This year, at age 77, he's running for city council yet again. Naturally I voted for him. ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

This doesn't inspire confidence: On Monday, the Justice Department announced that it would send federal monitors to 64 jurisdictions nationwide to monitor how elections are being conducted. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties were all slated to receive federal monitors from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. But Brad McVay, the chief counsel for the ...continue reading "Department of Justice not welcome in red states"

Remember a decade ago when we were all obsessed with leverage? Whatever happened to that, anyway? According to the Fed's latest report, our nation's big banks are doing fine if you look at the usual measure of leverage that uses risk-weighted capital. On the other hand, if you use a plain-Jane measure of tangible assets, ...continue reading "Leverage is back and it might get worse"

So much rain here in Southern California. So much. But don't let that stop you from voting, you over-coddled snowflakes. As my mother used to say, a little water never hurt anyone.¹ SO GO VOTE. ¹Exceptions: wicked witches, people sleeping with the fishes, fake mermaids.

Over at National Review, Andrew Stuttaford admits that a recent column by Tim Bond doesn't "inspire confidence." But he really likes this part: According to the BIS [the Bank of International Settlements], since the start of this century, advanced economy non-financial debt (that is debt owed by governments, business and households) has risen by 86 ...continue reading "Is debt really up all over the place?"

I could use some help here. This is a mural painted on an apartment building in Les Andelys, France, and by American standards it looks a little problematic. But maybe it has a different meaning in France. Are these random characters, or do they represent something well known? Any ideas to share?

Here's a telling tweet from Paul Waldman about yesterday's stump speech by Republican Blake Masters in Arizona: And here comes Blake Masters! On the stump he's solid if less than spectacular. Most of his speech is about how Mark Kelly and Joe Biden are in cahoots to destroy America. "So much of it looks intentional" ...continue reading "Why do liberals hate America so badly that they want to destroy it?"

Here is the Wall Street Journal commenting yet again on the economy: As the holidays approach and America’s full-time workers feel pinched by inflation, some are turning to second jobs to supplement their incomes. The October jobs report shows the number of Americans working part-time jobs in addition to their full-time jobs has increased 6%, ...continue reading "Once again, the Wall Street Journal deliberately misleads its readers"

For all of you traditional Tuesday voters—the ones in California, anyway—here's a repeat of my recommendations for how to vote on all of our ballot initiatives. Keep in mind a couple of things: I don't like ballot initiatives because they lock things into the state constitution that shouldn't usually be locked in. So my standards ...continue reading "Here’s how to vote on California’s ballot initiatives"

Over at Vox, Michael Bluhm interviews Jordan Schneider about President Biden's recent decision to ban exports of advanced computer chips to China. This is a very big deal that's gotten less attention than it deserves, something that Schneider calls "a point of no return for the relationship." And like everyone, he wonders how China will ...continue reading "Biden’s computer chip ban on China is a big deal"

You may recall that a couple of weeks ago I was trying to use my telescope when it just stopped dead. I'm sure you're wondering what happened next, aren't you? Well, settle in. I was pretty sure the problem was in the equipment, not the software, but I wasn't totally sure. For one thing, Device ...continue reading "Telescope update"

It's been a while since I've updated everyone on our various pandemics, so let's do that. Here's monkeypox: Roughly speaking, monkeypox is over. In the US we administered about 1 million doses of the vaccine compared to a few hundred thousand in Europe for a similar sized population. Despite the difference, both had almost identical ...continue reading "Here’s the latest pandemic update"

Seth Masket is tired of stale old stories about why Democrats lose elections: What are the narratives going to be Tuesday night? It’s fairly easy to know these ahead of time....In all circumstances, Democrats will be advised to moderate. Republicans interpret election losses very differently from Democrats....Democrats are constantly trying to downplay their more liberal ...continue reading "Seth Masket is bored of threadbare political narratives. He shouldn’t be."

Over at Mother Jones, Kiera Butler says that Florida is "flirting with an anti-vaccine apocalypse." Naturally I wanted to see it in chart form: Shazam! I suppose the big drop in 2020 can be chalked up to COVID-19. Hospitals were jammed and both patients and doctors were reluctant to schedule in-person visits. But the coverage ...continue reading "Childhood immunizations have cratered in Florida"

How do you persuade an 18-year-old Samoan kid with a howitzer for an arm to move from Southern California to Tennessee for college? If he's a 5-star quarterback, it's easy: Since committing in March to Tennessee — signing a name, image and likeness deal with a school booster collective rumored to be worth $8 million ...continue reading "The free market says a college quarterback is worth $8 million"

Once again I have a chart-a-rama for you. Here are four charts all related to the employment rate: All of these metrics are in agreement: Starting around January employment growth started to fall steadily. Since then, the number of job openings has dropped by nearly 2 million; the growth of the employment level has declined ...continue reading "The job market is s-l-o-w-i-n-g d-o-w-n"

You remember James Bennet, don't you? He was the editor of the Atlantic who got hired to run the New York Times editorial section in 2016. One of his goals was to diversify the range of opinion on the op-ed page, which in practice meant hiring a bunch of conservatives. Needless to say, this didn't ...continue reading "Was James Bennet really right?"

I said I wasn't going to do this, so naturally I did it: I took a look at violent crime rates in all ten of our biggest cities. Here it is: One caveat: I wanted to compare apples to apples, and that meant violent crime, which is defined as murder + rape + robbery + ...continue reading "Violent crime is under control in big cities — with one big exception"

The New York Times reported yesterday on fear of crime: Debra Kowalski, a 49-year-old nurse in Bucks County, Pa., has been pleading with her elderly parents to move out of Philadelphia, especially after a delivery driver was shot and killed last month a few blocks from their home. ....Though polls show that voters’ biggest concerns ...continue reading "Violent crime in Philadelphia is up . . . slightly"

Here is Charlie looking back as he contemplates wandering into our neighbor's yard. Luckily this didn't turn him into a pillar of salt. He made it through his ordeal completely intact.