Kevin Drum 🕸

The Fed's preferred measure of inflation, PCE, remained very low in June: On a conventional year-over-year basis, headline PCE came in at 2.5% and core PCE was 2.6%.

A few minutes ago I ran across a chart showing that investment in factories had exploded recently and was twice as high as it had ever been in history. It was adjusted for inflation, which is great, but for something that big it struck me that it really ought to be shown as a percent ...continue reading "Raw data: The Biden factory building boom sets a new record"

From Oklahoma's state superintendent of schools: The Bible, along with the Constitution and many other documents, are foundational in education. We will not allow rogue districts and administrators to indoctrinate hatred of America by refusing to teach foundational Oklahoma standards. You cannot rewrite history. The left… pic.twitter.com/OI0OJq0G9A — Superintendent Ryan Walters (@RyanWaltersSupt) July 24, 2024 ...continue reading "Oklahoma says Bible haters won’t be tolerated"

The New York Times/Siena poll has always been very Trump friendly, but that changed almost overnight after Joe Biden dropped out. Here is today's poll compared to the previous one: Among likely voters, Kamala Harris made up five points in the national poll instantly. She's still behind, and swing states are still a problem, but ...continue reading "Harris makes up huge ground in latest NYT poll"

The current hot topic in politics-land is who Kamala Harris will choose as her VP. And that's fine. It's good, clean fun. But it's odd that the discourse is all so thoroughly conventional, focused almost entirely on demographic considerations. She needs a white man to balance the fact that she's a Black woman. She needs ...continue reading "Kamala Harris should choose a pal for vice president"

A large RCT mask study was recently conducted in Norway. It involved about 4,000 people, half of whom wore surgical masks when they were outside the house and half of whom didn't. Here are the results: The folks who wore masks got COVID at a slightly higher rate than those who didn't. On the bright ...continue reading "Norwegian study says surgical masks don’t stop COVID"

This is Gustav Klimt's Judith at the Belvedere Museum in Vienna.

We now have all the important economic indicators for the second quarter of 2024: Real GDP grew 2.8% The unemployment rate was 4.0%. Inflation was down to 2.8%. Real wages were up 1%. Real disposable personal income was up 1.3%. Real consumption was up 1.5%. What's not to like?

I promise not to turn this into a '70s music blog, but over the course of my various peregrinations this week I now have four or five hours of "70s on 7" under my belt. And on the drive to Anaheim¹ this morning it occurred to me that during this time I haven't heard a ...continue reading "More kvetching about the ’70s"

The Atlanta Fed was right on target. GDP growth in Q2 clocked in at 2.8%: There's nothing special to report in the details. Personal consumption was up; investment was up: and government production was up. This is just a very nice, positive report.

On Thursday morning the BEA will announce its first estimate of GDP growth in Q2. Here is the Atlanta Fed's final model-driven forecast: The blue chip forecast from human beings is 1.8%. By the time most of you read this we should know who got closer.

Did Joe Biden really appoint Kamala Harris as a "border czar"? Nope. Here's an AP dispatch reporting what happened: Harris is tasked with overseeing diplomatic efforts to deal with issues spurring migration in the Northern Triangle countries of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, as well as pressing them to strengthen enforcement on their own borders, ...continue reading "Kamala Harris was never the border czar"

This is a sunbittern at the LA Zoo. After it flashed its tail at me I stuck around for quite a while hoping for a repeat, but this was the best I got. When it's fully spread out and up in the air it's pretty spectacular.

I grew up in the '70s, so naturally I like '70s music. I thought. But a couple of days ago I had to take my car into the shop for some body work and I'm now driving a loaner vehicle. It has Sirius XM available, so I've been listening to their "70s on 7" channel ...continue reading "My memories of the ’70s have been shattered"

Here's an interesting chart I ran into a couple of days ago: The University of Michigan has long been the gold standard in consumer sentiment surveys, but Goldman Sachs has its own consumer sentiment index that it constructs by monitoring Twitter on a daily basis. As you can see, the two measures are usually pretty ...continue reading "Have consumers finally realized the economy is pretty good?"

Conservatives sometimes say confusing things. I'm here to help with a short, and sadly incomplete, primer on conserva-speak. What They Say What They Mean 14th Amendment Complete ban on abortion from the moment of conception. Usage: "We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be ...continue reading "A short primer for understanding conservatives"

On Sunday our planet broke its old temperature record, set just a year ago. We have about 450° to go before we set a record for the solar system, but this is still impressive performance.

Today I got test results for my other cancer. It turns out the news on the multiple myeloma front isn't especially good or bad: After shooting up from zero to 0.31 last month, my M-protein level increased to 0.38 this month. Going up is obviously bad, but at least it slowed down a lot. I'll ...continue reading "Health update"

The Washington Post reports today on a new project to reduce the national debt. It comes from the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which asked seven think tanks to propose detailed plans for cutting the deficit. This sounds like typical think tank wankery, but I suppose the seven tanks should be praised for being willing to ...continue reading "Peterson Foundation says we need big tax increases"

From CBS News: The number of migrants unlawfully crossing the U.S. southern border has continued to drop markedly in July, nearing a threshold that would require officials to lift a partial ban on asylum claims enacted by President Biden, according to internal government data obtained by CBS News. For the record, this means the month ...continue reading "CBS News reports once again that illegal immigration is way down"