Kevin Drum 🕸

This is a gigantic moth at the Schmetterling Haus in Vienna. It's appropriately called an Atlas moth, and it's too bad there's no obvious scale to see how big it is. From wingtip to wingtip I'd put it at nearly a foot. It's also a very lazy moth. It might as well have been a ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Labor productivity in Q2 was up 2.7% compared to last year, which is a nice reading. That's four consecutive quarters of productivity growth well over 2%. But just to give you some perspective, here's labor productivity over the past three decades: As you can see, after a brief (and artificial) spurt during the pandemic, we're ...continue reading "Productivity grew nicely in Q2"

Construction spending fell in June for the second month in a row: This is hardly cause for panic, but it's the first time construction spending has fallen two months in a row since the end of 2022. It's the first time commercial construction has fallen two months in a row since 2021.

It turns out all the rumors were true: The United States, Russia, Germany and four other countries swapped at least two dozen people Thursday in the largest prisoner exchange since the height of the Cold War. Those released included American journalist Evan Gershkovich, former Marine Paul Whelan, Russian dissidents and others from the United States, ...continue reading "US prisoners released from Russia"

Raj Chetty and a cast of thousands have a new paper out that looks at economic mobility. In a nutshell, it finds that mobility has increased among Black families and decreased among white families. Similarly, it has increased among the rich and declined among the poor. For more details, the New York Times has a ...continue reading "Rich kids work less than the merely affluent when they grow up"

Here's the latest YouGov poll on the presidential race along with all the crosstabs: Kamala Harris is leading Trump 46% to 44%. Compared to two weeks ago, she's five points ahead of where Biden was and seven points ahead of where she was. Compared to Biden two weeks ago, Harris has picked up 3 points ...continue reading "Harris is way ahead of where Biden was two weeks ago"

If Donald Trump wants to lose the "weird" label, he needs to stop being.......not so much weird in this clip as just plain creepy:  "She was always of Indian heritage ... until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black." What kind ...continue reading "Yeah, Kamala Harris is Black"

Traffic jam on the Danube.

Can we please keep this simple? When Donald Trump told a bunch of evangelical Christians that after 2024 "you won't have to vote anymore," all he meant was: Just vote for me this year. I don't care what happens after that. That's it. Trump doesn't care about anything but himself. He doesn't genuinely care one ...continue reading "“You won’t have to vote again,” explained"

Today's big headline: Fed Opens Door Further to a September Rate Cut Officials held rates steady, but made an important pivot by highlighting a more equal focus on employment and inflation goals Fer chrissake. "Opens door"? An "important pivot"? What more does the Fed want? Every measure of inflation has been hovering between 2-3% for ...continue reading "Come on, Jerome, inflation is over"

The Wall Street Journal informs us today that inflation affects some household more than others. Their example is Nicole Lewis, a mother of three who lives north of Flint, Michigan: Pay raises since the pandemic helped Lewis and her husband, now a city manager, double their earnings to what had previously seemed unattainable: more than ...continue reading "Inflation is pretty much the same for all of us"

Watch this short clip of Kamala Harris at a campaign rally on Tuesday: Vice President Harris: Donald, I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. As the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face pic.twitter.com/5zykEnU3Dn — Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) July 30, 2024 What's important here ...continue reading "Kamala Harris is having a lot of fun"

I ignored this when I first saw it this morning: Black women make up less than 10% of the population, yet when it comes to killings by police, we make up a 3rd of them, with the majority unarmed. And that’s exactly what happened with Sonya Massey. #SayHerName#CRTSummmerSchool — Kimberlé Crenshaw (@sandylocks) July 30, 2024 ...continue reading "In the past three years, one unarmed Black woman has been killed by police"

Are Republicans weird? Minnesota governor Tim Walz started this meme and Republicans are steaming about it. Their response has mostly been, "No, you're weird." The best way to settle this is to go to the tape. Here's a list—by no means exhaustive—of things that various Republicans have proposed recently. You be the judge. The FBI ...continue reading "20 things that make Republicans weird"

This is a Union Pacific freight train passing through Banning. It's a meh kind of picture that normally wouldn't make the cut for the blog. Except for one thing. When I shot this I framed it poorly and the left edge of the photo stopped right at the signal. That was too tight, so I ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

Hiring fell by more than 5% in June: That's a pretty considerable drop, equal to 50% if it kept up for a full year (which it won't). Hiring has declined 17% in the past two years and nearly 10% over the past year. Over the past two years, hiring has dropped about 200,000 more than ...continue reading "Hiring declines yet again in June"

Alex Thompson informs me today that Kamala Harris no longer supports Medicare for All; says she won’t ban fracking; wants to increase funding for the border; and doesn’t want to require people to sell their assault weapons back to the government. Obviously this means that Harris has wisely decided to shift a bit toward the ...continue reading "Kamala Harris would be wise to shift slightly to the center"

Google is running an ad during the Olympics. Perhaps you've seen it. A little girl wants to write a fan letter to her hero, 400-meter-hurdle world-record holder Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. So Dad suggests she have Google's AI write one for her. He even makes up the prompt for her. The first time I saw this ad, ...continue reading "Dear [insert name here] . . ."

Consider the following chart. It shows the value of commercial property under foreclosure: What conclusion do you draw from the right edge of the chart, which shows foreclosures going up? Here's what the Wall Street Journal says: Surge in Commercial-Property Foreclosures Suggests Bottom Is Near In previous downturns, comparable surges in foreclosure activity has signaled ...continue reading "How long will the office building crisis last?"

Here's a remarkable headline from NBC News: These claims are repeated in the text, so it isn't just a matter of the headline being imprecise in order to save space. And all of them are wrong: Inflation has nothing to do with this. The cost of childcare has grown less than overall CPI and less ...continue reading "Childcare in America: The real story"