Kevin Drum 🕸

Rick Nevin writes in with the latest data on juvenile arrests. It's pretty spectacular: I don't know that I agree with Rick's trendlines—I doubt that juvenile crime is going to hit zero anytime soon—but his basic idea is sound. And it's remarkable that even as lead poisoning has flattened out, teen crime rates continue to ...continue reading "Juvenile crime is down yet again"

The Washington Post reports today about MoFi Records, a company that creates analog reissues of famous albums on vinyl. But a few weeks ago a customer discovered that the mastering process they used was not, in fact, completely analog: In a sometimes halting video posted to the YouTube channel of his Phoenix record shop, the ...continue reading "No, you can’t tell the difference between analog and digital"

I had a thought today. I don't know that it matters much, but here it is. You may recall that I wrote a post a few days ago explaining which metrics are used by NBER to date the starting points of recessions. GDP is not one of those metrics for the monthly dating, but it ...continue reading "Has the US economy really been shrinking?"

Oh man, not this again: It was once the most popular boy’s name in France, inspired in part by Hollywood films and boybands. But for the more than 150,000 French Kevins, the name has become so targeted by mockery, comic sketches and class prejudice that a new documentary is hoping to set the record straight ...continue reading "France fights back against Kevin prejudice"

Charlie looks so well balanced in this picture, doesn't he? But in real life he looked as if he was about crash belly first into Hilbert. He didn't, though, and Hilbert just kept on napping.

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema has agreed to support the latest version of Joe Biden's spending bill, but only if . . . . . . the provision that places limits on the carried interest loophole is removed. All I can do is laugh at this point. The CIL is now officially the cockroach of tax law. ...continue reading "Democrats finally agree on spending bill"

The monthly jobs report has loads of stuff in it, and I like to highlight something different each time. This month, it's average weekly hours worked: Riddle me this: We supposedly have millions of job openings that companies can't fill. That being the case, you'd think that in the meantime they'd be giving their workers ...continue reading "Economic mystery of the month"

The American economy gained 528,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 438,000 jobs. Not bad! The headline unemployment rate went down to 3.5%. Average weekly wages increased 0.47% from last month, an annualized rate of 5.8%. Adjusted ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in July"

This is the Bény-sur-Mer Canadian War Cemetery in Normandy. It's near Juno Beach, the D-Day landing site that was under the command of Canadian forces. Like all the war cemeteries in Normandy, it's quite beautiful and meticulously maintained.

I've long been intrigued by the fact that poor and non-poor people have such different relationships to noise. I'm not talking about Victorian silence or library shushing, just about normal life. Poor people tend to live loudly, throw parties, play music, and squabble with each other. Middle-class folks don't, and they don't want their neighbors ...continue reading "What’s the right amount of noise?"

The Washington Post is anticipating the upcoming new school year with alarm. Today's headline warns us that "America faces catastrophic teacher shortage." As usual, I'm suspicious of stories that are all anecdote and no data, so let's take a look at some basic data. This was released yesterday and takes us through June: "Net hires" ...continue reading "Are we facing a catastrophic teacher shortage?"

Monmouth has a new poll out showing Democrats with a 7% lead on the generic congressional ballot. They call this a "slight gain" from the dead heat they measured in June, and I guess that's fair enough. Still, here's what things look like: The blue dots in September are all the recent results at 538.com ...continue reading "Democrats are gaining ground in the generic congressional polls"

According to the CDC's latest survey release, we set a record in the first quarter of 2022. Only 9.6% of Americans under 65 lacked health insurance: This is probably due to increased Medicaid coverage and the expanded subsidies in the 2021 COVID stimulus bill. Note that 9.6% represents 26 million people.

Have you heard about the new 6th Street Bridge Viaduct in Los Angeles? It opened a couple of weeks ago and everyone loves it. This includes a huge number of people who have effectively shut it down by doing donuts in their muscle cars, climbing the arches, and strolling across the bridge viaduct in mass ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Last night I posted a chart showing that housing prices had moved up and down a lot in the past 50 years and had often been higher than they are now. But you have to adjust for both inflation and mortgage rates to see this. But what about rent? That data is a little harder ...continue reading "So how about Boomer rents vs. Millennials?"

Kansas had a measure on its ballot yesterday that essentially allowed the legislature to overrule a state court decision from a few years back that had protected abortion. There wasn't much else on the ballot to interest Democrats, but it didn't matter: they turned out in droves to defeat the initiative by a whopping 59-41%. ...continue reading "What’s the matter with Kansas? Nothing!"

Politico reports that young people are pissed off: While these voters are frustrated by Washington’s slow action on climate change and student debt, there’s another, often overlooked reason for their growing pessimism: The surging cost of housing has hit them harder than anyone else. The combination of record-high home prices and escalating mortgage costs — ...continue reading "Most Boomers had higher housing costs than Millennials"

Oh come on: The Defense Department wiped the phones of top departing DOD and Army officials at the end of the Trump administration, deleting any texts from key witnesses to events surrounding the January 6, 2021, attack on the US Capitol, according to court filings. [The officials include] former acting Secretary of Defense Chris Miller, ...continue reading "Yet more people had their phones wiped after the 1/6 insurrection"

This is the Long Beach skyline seen through the Seal Beach pier. The roundish building a little left of the midpoint is the Long Beach Arena. You can see the Queen Mary between the farthest left pilings. A cruise ship is docked at the far left.

I was thinking once again about the myth of deadlock the other day, and in particular I was thinking about what Joe Biden has managed to get done in his first 18 months. Here's a list of big things, ranked from top to bottom: Afghanistan withdrawal $1.9 trillion COVID stimulus Infrastructure bill Rallying the world ...continue reading "Joe Biden’s greatest accomplishment so far is . . ."