Kevin Drum 🕸

National Review's Luther Ray Abel reports on Ron DeSantis's latest pitch: Florida governor Ron DeSantis (R.) called for the abolishment of the IRS during a CNN town hall in Iowa as he makes his final few pitches to the voters of the Hawkeye State. DeSantis said, “I want to eliminate the IRS, and I would ...continue reading "Ron DeSantis is letting them see him sweat"

Yesterday I wrote about the federal budget for this year and how much it was going to get cut in various scenarios. As you'll recall, I was puzzled about what was really going on. But complaining gets results around here! Today the CBO published a definitive letter on precisely this subject. Note that "this subject" ...continue reading "The federal budget — explained!"

How's the housing market doing? There are two good measures: (a) total home sales and (b) mortgage applications. Here they are: The top chart is home sales adjusted for population. It shows total home sales at the lowest level since the depths of the 1981-82 recession. The bottom chart is unadjusted raw numbers for mortgage ...continue reading "Charts of the day: The housing market at the start of 2024"

This is not a great picture, but I had to hike for a good long time to take it. So by God, you're all going to see it. This is Balcony House, one of the ancient cliff dwellings at Mesa Verde National Park. The only way to see it is to take a trail that ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The LA Times draws my attention today to one of my pet topics: working at home. Gensler Research recently conducted a survey of office workers to find out if they were happy with their home-office split. They weren't, but not in the direction you'd think: on average, they said they spend 48% of their time ...continue reading "New survey says workers want more time in the office"

Israel sent a drone into Beirut a couple of days ago to kill a senior Hamas commander. Hezbollah has said it will retaliate. Today the US sent a missile into Baghdad to kill a militia commander linked to Iran who had claimed responsibility for attacks on American troops. In the Red Sea, it seems only ...continue reading "Gaza war is looking riskier all the time"

30-year mortgage rates are generally higher than long-term Treasury yields because mortgages are riskier. Usually the spread is around 1.7%, but for the past year it's been close to 3%. However, the Wall Street Journal informs us that the spread is coming down, which indeed it is. But not by much: The Journal promises to ...continue reading "The mortgage spread is coming down . . . slightly"

According to Democrats on the House Oversight Committee, foreign governments trying to curry favor with Donald Trump spent nearly $8 million in stays at Trump's hotels during his presidency. As a public service, I have made a chart out of the top ten sycophants with the columns colored in beautiful Trump gold: China is #1 ...continue reading "Which country paid Trump the biggest bribes?"

How is Joe Biden doing in a trial heat against Donald Trump? In particular, how is he doing with young voters and Black voters? Take your pick: Both polls were in the field at nearly the same time. But the Suffolk poll says Biden is behind with young voters 33%-37% while the YouGov poll says ...continue reading "Biden is probably still well ahead of Trump among young voters"

I'm not generally a New York Times hater, but they sure do know how to overdo things. I mean, is the resignation of Harvard's president really worth five front-page pieces in a single day? I get that their target audience is upper middle class northeasterners, but come on.

For the past year or so, the new hotness on the right has been an all-out attack on DEI—Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion. They object to it pretty much everywhere, but most of their attention recently has been focused on universities. As usual, this got me curious. Unfortunately, it appears all but impossible to get reliable ...continue reading "Does DEI even work?"

From Mark Lezama, a patent attorney, about recent announcements that Steamboat Willie (aka Mickey Mouse) will be starring in several horror films now that Disney's copyright has expired: The main thing is to be sure you’re not using Mickey in promotional materials in a way that would make someone think the film came from Disney. ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Mickey the slasher"

The Pacific Ocean.

Sen. Patty Murray has been sounding alarm bells recently about the possibility of a full-year continuing resolution. This would happen if the House simply gave up on enacting a budget for the current year and instead extended current spending through September. But there's a catch to a full-year CR: The debt ceiling deal has a ...continue reading "What happens if Congress never passes a budget?"

The Wall Street Journal has finally gotten around to addressing one of the great issues of our times: A growing understanding of the importance of sleep for health and lifespan has made slumber hacks and gadgets all the buzz—including the increasingly common advice to sleep with socks. ....Authorities, from the Cleveland Clinic to the University ...continue reading "Cold feet? Wear socks in bed."

JOLTS data is out for November and hiring was way down. The number of new hires declined by 363,000, or 6.2%, from October: Hiring is now down to its 2017 levels. Job openings were also down, but only slightly, and remain well above pre-pandemic levels.

It's sort of a truism in the social sciences that nothing works. More specifically, interventions meant to improve things almost never actually do. Megan Stevenson, an economist and criminal justice scholar at the University of Virginia law school, says this about it: This claim will not be controversial to anyone immersed in the literature. But, ...continue reading "Nothing works. Now with proof!"

A couple of saguaro cacti outside Phoenix. This picture was taken out of the window of our car on Interstate 10 while Marian was driving.

CNN is reporting that "all three major insulin manufacturers are offering $35/mo caps on out-of-pocket costs." But that's not really true. They aren't "offering" anything. They fought tooth and nail against this but were essentially forced by Joe Biden to cap their prices via rebate provisions of the American Rescue Plan that would otherwise have ...continue reading "Joe Biden has capped insulin prices at $35 per month"

This is unbelievable. Every single person aboard this Japan Airlines jet survived the crash shown in this video. (The plane it crashed into was not so lucky. Five out of six coast guard crew members were killed.)