Kevin Drum 🕸

According to the Washington Post, "live commerce" allows users to buy products in real time, "typically advertised by hosts during live video events on platforms such as TikTok Shop and Instagram Live." And it's booming! Global sales on these platforms hit $918.9 million last year, according to a Verified Market Research study, and are projected ...continue reading "Live commerce is surging! Or maybe not."

Since I'm beating dead horses this week, let's continue. When Congress passed the various COVID rescue bills, it resulted in massive deficits in 2020-21, which drove up the money supply. How much? This much: The red shaded area is the excess above the normal growth of M2 money supply, and provides a good proxy for ...continue reading "I’m not sure the inflation horse is dead, so let’s beat it some more"

Fine. I give up. I thought Pete Hegseth for SecDef was about as unqualified an appointment as you could get. Obviously I was wrong: "Provocative" indeed. But wait! That's not even the craziest pick today: Gabbard, as far as I know, has exactly zero background in intelligence. Matt Gaetz may be under investigation for sexual ...continue reading "Trump is choosing the most telegenic cabinet in history"

I pass this sign every time I return from an astrophotography session in the desert. There are two of them, both misspelled, and I keep wondering if they're ever going to be replaced. The odd thing is that the signs on the eastbound side of the freeway are spelled correctly. Go figure.

From an anonymous defense lobbyist on Donald Trump's choice of Fox News talker Pete Hegseth to be Secretary of Defense: “Who the fuck is this guy?” I guess this lobbyist doesn't watch Fox & Friends on weekends? More to the point, I wonder if Sen. Roger Wicker watches Fox & Friends on weekends? He's in ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Who’s Pete Hegseth?"

Donald Trump's administration hasn't even started and he's already suffered his first loss: Senate Republicans chose Sen. John Thune of South Dakota to be their new leader, rejecting an outside pressure campaign from Donald Trump’s allies to break with the establishment in the secret-ballot election, according to two people familiar with the vote. Thune, a ...continue reading "John Thune elected new Republican leader in the Senate"

Ramesh Ponnuru says Elizabeth Warren might be responsible for high inflation: In 2021, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) led the fight to keep President Biden from reappointing Jerome Powell as chairman of the Federal Reserve.... Former Fed official Randal Quarles has said that uncertainty about the Fed’s leadership delayed the central bank’s response to rising ...continue reading "Once more on the Fed and inflation"

Average weekly earnings beat inflation for the sixth month in a row in October: Adjusted for inflation, wages rose at an annualized rate of 1.5% in October.

CPI inflation ticked up in October and core CPI ticked down: Used car prices surged in October after cooling off over the past year. Food inflation remained around 1% and clothing prices dropped. On a conventional year-over-year basis, headline CPI clocked in at 2.6% and core CPI at 3.3%.

Annie Lowrey comments on the economic problems of the working class: The COVID-era boosts to SNAP, UI, CTC, and child care went away. Medicaid unwound. Food costs spiraled. Interest rates doubled. Measures of material hardship worsened. And Democrats pointed to headline figures showing a boom. I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I continue ...continue reading "The working class has done fine during the Biden era"

Is this a joke? President-elect Donald Trump chose Pete Hegseth, who is a combat veteran and co-host on the weekend edition of “Fox & Friends,” to be his defense secretary. Hegseth has no defense experience—aside from having lots of opinions. He has no government experience and no experience dealing with the Pentagon bureaucracy. He's never ...continue reading "Fox talking head is our new Secretary of Defense"

This picture was taken on the U6 metro line in Vienna near Thaliastrasse. I don't really know why it appeals to me since there's nothing all that special about it. But maybe that's it. Just an ordinary slice of life on an ordinary day.

Since we seem to be relitigating Joe Biden's ARP stimulus and whether it caused inflation, I want to show you my theory of the case. It will be familiar to most of you. Apologies for the complicated chart. What it shows is that the first phase of inflation started shortly after the pandemic and was ...continue reading "The impact of ARP on inflation"

I keep reading that Donald Trump might try to fire Fed chair Jerome Powell, whose term runs through 2026. But what is this based on? Trump himself hasn't said anything, and Powell is steadily lowering interest rates, which is what Trump wants. Nor has Powell put himself on Trump's enemies list by saying something critical ...continue reading "Jerome Powell should be safe for now"

A friend asked me yesterday if turnout was really down this year. The answer is yes, but it's a bit trickier than it seems. Turnout was 158 million in 2020 and looks like it will end up around 154 million this year. But 2020 was a big spike year and might not be a fair ...continue reading "Was turnout really down in 2024?"

I see that Donald Trump has reaffirmed his plan to abolish the Department of Education, so I'll remind everyone yet again that this meaningless. The question is what programs you're going to abolish, and on that score the Department of Education is pretty simple:¹ You've got Pell Grants for working and middle-class college students. You've ...continue reading "How many times can we kill the Department of Education?"

If you voted against Kamala Harris—or just stayed home—because you were pissed off about Gaza, I have bad news for you: Israel’s Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich welcomed President Donald Trump’s electoral victory Monday, saying that “the time has come” to extend full Israeli sovereignty over the occupied West Bank. ....During Trump’s first term, he said, ...continue reading "Israeli lunatic thinks Trump will make all his wishes come true"

I ate a bag of potato chips with lunch and they were.......not bad! My salt taste is definitely coming back. Sweet never went completely away, but sour is still nowhere. I tried a pickle and tasted nothing. I'm not sure how to test bitter since I don't really eat any bitter foods. Anyway, progress.

Jack Herrera has a piece in Politico today about why Democrats lost the Latino vote this year. This is already a tedious genre, but if it's Jack Herrera it's worth a read First off, it's worth acknowledging that the blowout wasn't as bad as it seems. The biggest losses were in places like Florida and ...continue reading "Jack Herrera on Latinos and the Democratic Party"

The Energy Information Administration dropped its latest monthly estimate of solar module shipments a few days ago, so this seems like a good time take to take stock. Here's an extrapolation of where we'll be by 2030 if solar keeps rising at its current rate: At the current rate of growth, solar capacity will reach ...continue reading "Raw data: The cost of solar power through 2030"