Kevin Drum 🕸

There are two primary measures of employment in the US. The first is Total Nonfarm Payroll, and it was up 272,000 in May. The second is the Employment Level, and it was down 408,000. These two metrics measure different things, but their growth rates generally move in tandem. Over the past couple of years, however, ...continue reading "Raw data: Employment in the US"

Conservatives are playing all their greatest hits these days: The Constitution gives control over spending to Congress, but Trump and his aides maintain that the president should have much more discretion — including the authority to cease programs altogether, even if lawmakers fund them. Depending on the response from the Supreme Court and Congress, Trump’s ...continue reading "Trump wants the power to slash the budget. He won’t get it."

The American economy gained 272,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 182,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate increased to 4.0%. The net number of new jobs isn't bad. However, the total employment level was down 408,000 and ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in May"

The Washington Post writes today about the eight leading contenders to be Donald Trump's vice president. Here's my ranking: Greatest willingness to kowtow: Tim Scott Overall pure shittiness: Elise Stefanik Nonentity award: Doug Burgum Willingness to pretend to be an idiot: J.D. Vance Actual idiot: Ben Carson Most pathetically ambitious: Marco Rubio Strong right arm ...continue reading "Which horrible person will be Trump’s VP?"

The Washington Post reports that the freedom-loving free marketeers at the Heritage Foundation are suggesting that Donald Trump should regulate insurance companies more heavily if he wins. In particular, they shouldn't be allowed to pay for out-of-state abortion: The Heritage Foundation, which has been heavily involved in policy proposals for a Trump second term, has ...continue reading "Conservatives are looking for a loophole to further ban abortion"

An organization called Fix the Court has published an estimate of all gifts received by Supreme Court justices since 2004. Their figures show Clarence Thomas way out in front, but this is obviously unfair since Thomas has been on the court longer than most justices. When you adjust for gifts per year, you get something ...continue reading "Clarence Thomas has received a ton of gifts while on the Supreme Court"

This is a World War II cemetery in Normandy. It holds the remains of British troops who stormed Gold, Juno, and Sword beaches on D-Day.

I didn't notice this when it was published, but I see that polling from the New York Times confirms the YouGov results I mentioned yesterday. Donald Trump's conviction on felony charges has moved voters only slightly: The Times interviewed some of the folks who were previously Trumpish or undecided. Here are their complaints about Biden: ...continue reading "NYT confirms that Trump’s felony conviction had only a tiny effect"

I was browsing through the press highlights of the April trade report and learned that we set a new record for imports from Ireland. But what the hell do we import from Ireland? Whiskey? Shamrock-themed tea towels? The answer turns out to be drugs. Now you know.

Over at National Review, Michael New says Democrats were "grandstanding" with their bill yesterday that would have protected the right to contraception: The aim of the bill was to solve a problem that doesn’t exist. First, contraceptives are widely available.... Furthermore, more contraceptive use would not necessarily reduce the number either of abortions or of ...continue reading "There’s no good reason not to protect contraception"

Here's the headline on a Jim Geraghty post at National Review: President Biden to Time Magazine: ‘(Unintelligible)’ What is with these people? Geraghty isn't one of the insane ones at NR, but here he is trying to push the conservative narrative of Biden's mental decline by pointing to (a) one word (b) during a one-hour ...continue reading "BREAKING: Biden mumbled one word during Time interview"

Has Donald Trump's felony conviction hurt him? Naturally I was curious to see the results of the first post-verdict weekly poll from YouGov. The answer is "slightly." YouGov finds that the verdict made 5% of the electorate less likely to vote for him and 2% more likely to vote for him. That's a net loss ...continue reading "Poll: Trump’s felony conviction has hurt him only slightly so far"

Donald Trump was convicted of a felony last week, but today he got better news. In Georgia, a state appellate court halted Fani Willis's election fraud trial while it decides whether she should be removed from the case. In Florida, judge Aileen Cannon has delayed proceedings once again while she considers a bunch of ridiculous ...continue reading "Donald Trump’s two-tiered justice"

Good news! I get to go through menopause. Really. I met with the oncology team about my prostate cancer today and they recommended a treatment plan of hormone therapy plus radiation. The hormone in question is testosterone, which is the main feedstock of prostate cancer. So basically the idea is to suppress testosterone and starve ...continue reading "Health update"

As we all know, anecdotal data is better than so-called "evidence" from the deep-state food bureaucrats at the BLS or the USDA. Luckily, I just got back from my local Albertson's supermarket and was able to personally check on the price of bacon here in California. There were four brands. The cheapest was $6 and ...continue reading "Bacon update"

Here on the grounds of Melk Abbey in Austria, Marian has just walked through the Circle of Power. What superpowers do you think she gained?

Last night I came across a global comparison of different countries based on two measures. The first was GDP per capita, which is pretty standard. The second was Actual Individual Consumption, which is a more direct measure of living standards. For some reason, the thing I found interesting was the ratio of consumption to GDP. ...continue reading "Consumption around the world"

David Dayen writes in the American Prospect this month about "surveillance pricing," the art of charging different customers different prices for the same thing: Surveillance pricing is done in the dark because companies know there would be some degree of anger if a product with one price suddenly had 330 million. Any kind of discrimination ...continue reading "Surveillance pricing is in your future"

More from the focus group: This is a master class in getting things wrong: Inflation in California has been lower than the rest of the country. According to the USDA, the price of bacon in California under Joe Biden has gone up about 18%, from $5.38 to $6.37. Much of that is due to Proposition ...continue reading "California math"

Behold Ben, a 42-year-old white guy from Texas, explaining to a focus group why he's moving away from Trump: As far as porn stars go for affairs, he could have set a better example for who to have an affair with.... There are so many wonderful porn stars out there.... But I want a president ...continue reading "The best reason ever to vote for Joe Biden"