Kevin Drum 🕸

Ezra Klein sez: Donald Trump had exactly one, you-gotta-hand-it-to-him, that was an insanely successful policy that saved countless lives and we should do it again and again: Operation Warp Speed. And it's the only policy from his first term he has completely disowned and is now salting the… — Ezra Klein (@ezraklein) November 20, 2024 ...continue reading "Three great modern myths"

Here is Look #1: On a national level, there's nothing to see. Housing is historically plentiful. Here's Look #2: This is new building activity, and nationally it once again looks OK. But building has nearly ground to a halt in Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Boston, New York City, Baltimore, and Washington DC. There ...continue reading "Two looks at the housing crisis"

Here's another Milky Way picture. It's not a great one, taken at the tail end of the season and requiring a lot of processing to get rid of some weird coloring. But lots of stars! I'll be trying again with my new camera, but not for another six months or so. For the time being ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

In 2022 Republicans won 50.6% of the total vote for the House of Representatives. With most of the votes counted in 2024, Republicans have won 50.7% of the vote. I dunno. This is perhaps not really a huge mandate for change for the Republican Party?

Elon Musk has successfully focused the discourse on the size of the federal workforce, and now there are bad numbers floating around on all sides. Conservatives like to show partial numbers that are hugely inflated by growth at the Department of Homeland Security. Liberals show numbers that include only salaried workers. The real number covers ...continue reading "Raw data: The real number of federal workers"

Here's my latest PSA result: Hum de hum. Anything under 4 is fine, but today's result is up from the last one. I don't like that. I've got a visit with the prostate doc next week, and I'll ask if this is anything to be concerned about.

Here's something esoteric that I didn't know: Even as overall productivity has risen 34% (since 1987), capital productivity has declined 15%. And it's not just the US: Capital productivity has plummeted across all rich countries. In the food and construction sectors it's down more than 50%. In other sectors it's down 30%, and only in ...continue reading "Raw data: Capital productivity in rich countries"

Yesterday Trump chose former MTV "Real World" host and current Fox host Sean Duffy to be his Transportation Secretary. Today it's this: Not counting himself, this makes three TV hosts in Trump's cabinet (Hegseth, Duffy, Oz) plus a bevy of other folks with proven chops on Fox. At least Trump is consistent about what he ...continue reading "Trump chooses quack TV doctor to run Medicare"

This is crazy: Roughly speaking, families in the "upper income" third earn $150,000 or more. And yet 59% of Republicans who make this much say they're working class. A third of Democrats do too. Where does this come from? I could sort of understand it if these were people who were raised working class and ...continue reading "We are all working class now"

A street scene in Santa Ana. Or a sidewalk scene, anyway.

Two internet cables in the Baltic Sea have been cut, and one current guess is that it was done by a Chinese vessel at the behest of Russia. But why cut an obscure cable between Sweden and Lithuania? Rod Thornton, an expert at King's College London, explains: “It’s cutting a cable that isn’t going to ...continue reading "Who cut Sweden’s lifeline to Lithuania?"

Here's an odd story that popped back to mind recently. It happened one day in seventh grade when my English teacher decided to hold an impromptu spelling bee. A classmate and I picked the teams, and after a few picks my teacher blurted out, "Are you trying to lose?" I wasn't, but for some reason ...continue reading "Trump’s cabinet is going to fizzle"

Congratulations to Shannon Rowbury! She just won the 1500 meter bronze medal . . . . . . in the 2012 Olympics. She placed sixth in the actual race, but moved up to fourth when the top two finishers were disqualified for doping and then to third when yet another was DQed. But why did ...continue reading "American runner wins Olympic medal today"

I don't know how big a deal this is, but in the aftermath of the Trump election economic uncertainty has reached its highest level since the index began 40 years ago: There have actually been a few single-day spikes higher than the current level, but the difference is that today's reading is the result of ...continue reading "Economic uncertainty has surged since Trump was elected"

Here's a helluva chart:¹ Both elite private universities (Harvard, Stanford, etc.) and elite public universities (Berkeley, U Michigan, etc.) got most of their students from affluent families up until World War II. After that the GI Bill identified smart but poor teens who could benefit from an elite education, and the number of kids from ...continue reading "Elite education: Back to where it started 100 years ago"

A few days ago I read an interview with Sherrod Brown about why he lost his reelection race in Ohio this year. My answer would have been that Ohio has been getting redder for years and it finally caught up with him. A gazillion dollars of crypto money opposing him didn't help either. But Brown ...continue reading "NAFTA was fine. It was China that ruined the working class."

CNN says inflation is skyrocketing in Russia: Butter, some meats, and onions are about 25% more expensive than a year ago, according to official data.... Inflation is being driven by the rapid rise in wages as the Kremlin pours billions into military industries and sends millions of men to fight in Ukraine. Hmmm. "Some" meats. ...continue reading "Inflation in Russia is . . . kind of normal"

Maybe I'm guilty of not paying attention, but lately I've noticed there's (apparently) considerable pushback to the notion that human sex is binary. But it is: Women have the capacity to produce eggs and men to produce sperm. At a biological level, that's pretty much all there is to it despite the existence of a ...continue reading "Sex vs. gender: I have a question"

I had a hamburger for lunch today! It was good! Well, it was OK. My taste buds aren't 100% back yet. I'd say maybe 80%. By next week I should be fully recovered from this horror show. SILVER LINING DEPARTMENT: I've dropped 20 pounds over the past six weeks. I'm now merely overweight, not obese, ...continue reading "Health update"

You've seen the exterior of Stephansdom in Vienna, now it's time to see the interior.