Kevin Drum 🕸

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here are the items that have gone up in price the most over the past year: This is why voters are so upset over an inflation rate of 7%. That may be the overall inflation rate, but for some of the things that are most visible to them ...continue reading "Here are the top 20 items most affected by inflation"

What's the best measure of the spread of COVID-19? That's a hard question to answer these days, but I think that hospitalizations have emerged as everyone's go-to metric. So here it is: The good news is that just about everyone has peaked and is starting to come down. The only exception is France, which is ...continue reading "Raw data: COVID-19 hospitalizations"

Here is Hilbert looking magnificently toward the future, which he envisions as a chicken in every pot and a thousand cans of cat food in every garage.

Yesterday I casually mentioned that I didn't think the overproduction of PhDs was a big problem. This produced some pushback, including the familiar complaint that it dooms lots of PhD-havers to a life of penury as members of the huge pool of adjunct professors desperately hoping they'll eventually land a full-time tenure-track job. It's true ...continue reading "There is no glut of PhDs"

Walmart is getting a lot of media play for announcing an increase in pay for its long-haul truck drivers: The company, in a bid to keep its supply chain running smoothly, is setting starting salaries for its truck drivers between $95,000 and $110,000 a year, up from an average starting salary of $87,000, said a ...continue reading "Are Walmart truck drivers getting a big raise?"

My distance vision now seems to be 20/20 or pretty close to it. My near vision is significantly improved: I'm writing this without glasses, which means my medium vision is usable in a pinch, though still a bit fuzzy. My reading vision is still unusable without glasses, but at least it's not just a big ...continue reading "Eyeball update"

Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas, much more powerful than CO2. And emissions of methane keep going up: The bad news is that the amount of methane in the atmosphere isn't just rising, it's accelerating. The good news is that methane only lasts about 50 years before it breaks down. If we can get ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Methane emissions reach record high"

I love liberal fights over Obamacare: Almost no writer on the left actually understands the ACA. Adding the individual mandate significantly increases the CBO cost of the law. This is why the GOP used repeal of it as a pay for in their reconciliation bill. https://t.co/IQqEDr0zCb — Jon Walker (@JonWalkerDC) April 7, 2022 It's true ...continue reading "Let’s fight over the individual mandate some more!"

This morning I went in to get the first adjustment to my new eyes. By tomorrow I should have better near and far vision and I'll be ready in another week for adjustment #2. The adjustments will continue until we're all happy with the results. However, my doctor really, really wanted my eyes dilated for ...continue reading "Fun day"

Spring has sprung, and that means pictures from the garden. You've seen this pink rose before, and you'll probably see it again, but this is the 2022 version. It's an especially good one, I think, because I caught it at the perfect moment in its unfolding.

From Chad Orzel, writing about the overproduction of PhDs by American universities: This is a topic where I’m so worried that something I write will be taken the wrong way that I often end up hedging so much that nobody finds it worth a response. Hah hah, do you really think that hedging will prevent ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Do we mint too many PhDs?"

A few days ago the LA Times published security camera video of a sheriff's deputy who knelt on the head of a handcuffed inmate for about three minutes. The circumstances are a little murky, but luckily the sheriff is ON IT: Los Angeles County Sheriff Alex Villanueva said he is launching a criminal investigation to ...continue reading "LA sheriff is investigating misconduct, but not the kind you’d think"

Sam Levin reports on the $1.9 trillion COVID relief bill passed in early 2021: As part of the American Rescue Plan Act (Arpa), the Biden administration’s signature stimulus package, the US government sent funds to cities to help them fight coronavirus and support local recovery efforts. The money, officials said, could be used to fund ...continue reading "In California, $1 billion in COVID funding has gone to police — so far"

web3 is bullshit. NFTs are bullshit. Crypto is bullshit. DAOs are bullshit. That's it. There's nothing more to say. It's time to move on. Don't bother arguing about this or demanding an explanation from me. You either get this or you don't. If you don't, you might be one of the lucky ones who gets ...continue reading "Bullshit, bullshit, and more bullshit"

Congress is currently trying to suss out why gasoline prices are so high. Here's the answer: When the price of oil goes up, so does the price of gasoline. To get the price of gasoline, just divide the price of oil by 36 and then add 70 cents. That's the dashed gray line. The actual ...continue reading "Oil is up. Gasoline is up. Any other questions?"

This is Corona Del Mar, a neighborhood of Newport Beach that's most famous for serving as the location of Arrested Development. This picture is a four-shot panorama that was stitched together in Photoshop.

Did the end of the expanded Child Tax Credit spell doom for Democrats? NEW: Congressional Democrats had a 12-point generic ballot lead over the GOP in December among recipients of the expanded child tax credit. That benefit has dried up, and now congressional Republicans have the advantage with this group of voters. https://t.co/IDFTls4Cc7 pic.twitter.com/tQxKkWIGSn — ...continue reading "The expanded CTC came to an end. So did Democratic support among recipients."

It's a well-known fact that in the United States rich people have much longer life expectancies than poor people. Much of this is attributed to our private health care system, which does a lousy job of treating the uninusured and underinsured. That got me curious: do other countries with national health care systems do better? ...continue reading "Chart of the day: The inequality of life expectancy by income"

From Doug Johnson, writing about the need for indigenous voices in the search for extraterrestrial life: Other trappings of colonialism have ended up in modern space exploration. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos wore a cowboy hat before his spaceflight, for example. In all, if anyone out there is looking, said Shorter, humanity isn’t necessarily putting its ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Colonialism in modern space exploration"

Oh ffs: It's bad enough that half of all Republicans think Democratic leaders run child sex-trafficking rings, but 21% of Democrats think so too. So why are they still Democrats, anyway? In any case, thanks conservative media! It's good to see that you're on the job as always.