Kevin Drum 🕸

The feds have decided that Tesla's Autopilot technology needs to get better: The issue here isn't how good Tesla's unassisted driving is. The issue is that Tesla is supposed to make sure drivers are paying attention regardless, typically by beeping and alerting when they take their hands off the wheel or their eyes wander. The ...continue reading "How safe are Tesla cars with Autopilot?"

This is from a government record I randomly ran across today: “Document(s)” is used in the broadest sense of the word and shall mean all original written, printed, typed, recorded, or graphic matter whatsoever, however produced or reproduced, of every kind, nature, and description, and all non-identical copies of both sides thereof, including, but not ...continue reading "What is a document?"

Here is Hilbert surveying his vast domains, like Alexander after he had conquered the known world. Known to him, that is.

The Guardian today has a piece about Allan Lichtman's famous "13 keys" to winning the White House, which have a strong record of predicting the eventual winner. The party in the White House has to lose six of them to get voted out, so let's play along. Here are the 13 keys along with my ...continue reading "Joe Biden is going to win!"

David Brooks has a remarkable column in the New York Times today dedicated to one thing: our rising national debt. The reason it's remarkable has nothing to do with the subject matter. I'm not a big deficit hawk, but the long and steady rise in the national debt is at least concerning: Even after removing ...continue reading "America needs higher taxes"

March was another good-news-bad-news month for PCE inflation: Headline PCE inflation dropped a bit to 3.9%, but core PCE increased to 3.9%. The inflation level is proving to be a little more stubborn than anyone hoped for. On a conventional year-over-year basis, headline PCE came in at 2.7% and core PCE was 2.8%.

Due mostly to laziness, I suppose, I've been laboring under the impression that last year the International Court of Justice ruled there was a "plausible" case to be made for genocide in Gaza. But Joan Donoghue, who was president of the court at the time, says this isn't so: The court decided that the Palestinians ...continue reading "International court didn’t say there was plausible genocide in Gaza"

We've banned TikTok and now we're considering a ban on DJI drones because maybe the Chinese can use them to collect personal information and spy on us: “DJI presents an unacceptable national security risk, and it is past time that drones made by Communist China are removed from America,” Representative Elise Stefanik, Republican of New ...continue reading "Hobby drones are the latest target of the China panic"

I noticed something odd yesterday. There are many different ways of estimating the net number of new jobs each quarter, and one of the least known is the quarterly BLS report on employment dynamics. It measures the number of jobs gained from businesses opening or expanding minus the number of jobs lost from businesses closing ...continue reading "How many new jobs are we really creating?"

This is a scarlet ibis spreading its wings at the LA Zoo. They're really quite magnificent creatures.

A friend of mine recently got back from a trip to Japan and says their tour guide told them something remarkable: the Japanese spend more on adult diapers these days than they do on baby diapers. Huh. But then he asked Microsoft's Copilot, which is based on ChatGPT, about the United States. It said the ...continue reading "Just how big is the global market for baby diapers?"

David Pecker, the publisher of National Enquirer, is still testifying in the Trump hush money trial. I'm not sure how they've managed to fill up three days with Pecker—and that's before any cross examination—but they have. The New York Times tells us about a snippet of his testimony this morning: Pecker has just given us ...continue reading "National Enquirer boss says Trump bragged about hush money in front of the FBI director"

The Atlanta Fed should hang its head in shame. GDP growth in Q1 clocked in way below their forecast, rising only 1.6% in the first quarter: Is this good news or bad news? We have to play the usual game here: it's bad news because it suggests the economy is getting weak. But it's good ...continue reading "GDP grows an anemic 1.6% in Q1"

A few facts about the H5N1 avian flu virus: Humans who are in close contact with sick birds like poultry farmers and slaughterhouse workers are at a high risk of infection.... Despite confined examples of person-to-person transmission occurring since 1997, constant transmission has not been observed. ....H5N1 was first discovered in humans in 1997 in ...continue reading "Raw data: Avian flu cases, 2003-2024"

I warned you that someday there would be a pop quiz to see if you've been paying attention to me, and today's the day. Please explain what's wrong with this infographic: The key result here is that 38% of protests turn violent if police are present, while only 7% turn violent if police stay away. ...continue reading "A pop quiz: Are police the cause of protest violence?"

Yesterday Truth Social had 136 million shares outstanding at a closing price of $32.57. Today, after Trump met the terms for a payout of 36 million new shares, they effectively have 172 million shares outstanding at a closing price of $35.67. So in one day, in which nothing happened, the paper value of the company ...continue reading "Truth Social just gets scammier and scammier"

On the Seine near the town of Elbeuf.

The Chamber of Commerce barely waited a day to sue the FTC over its recent decision to ban noncompete agreements. The New York Times tells the story: The lawsuit, filed in a U.S. District Court in Texas.... I am shocked. However, my prediction from yesterday got the compass wrong. I figured the Chamber would sue ...continue reading "Chamber of Commerce sues to overturn noncompete ban. Can you guess where they did it?"

Here's something you might not know. For decades, Black workers have been employed at rates about 8 points less than white workers. Since 2010 that difference has disappeared: Among all ages, employment of Black workers is now about the same as it is for white workers. Among ages 25-54, Black workers are still employed at ...continue reading "Raw data: Black vs. white employment levels"

Bird flu update: Dairy cows must be tested for bird flu before moving across state lines under a federal order to be issued Wednesday, as evidence mounts the virus is more widespread than feared among cows in the United States. Biden administration officials said the move is meant to contain transmission of the virus known ...continue reading "Bird flu is spreading beyond birds"