I turn 65 shortly, and yesterday I got a note from my doctor: I will no longer be allowed to use Ambien. Nor any other sleep med. Why? Because they...... ......make you drowsy. I'm not joking. All sleep meds carry a risk of keeping you drowsy longer than intended, and in old folks that increases ...continue reading "I am now forbidden from taking sleep meds"
My sister is back from a vacation to Merrie Olde Englande and she brings catblogging home with her. This is Budge, the resident cat at Norwich Cathedral. My sister reports that Budge is very sociable, though I'm sure he has a hidey hole somewhere when he doesn't want to be disturbed. He has an Instagram ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging โ 6 October 2023"
This is a common lament on lefty Twitter: Dear Joe Biden: you are WINNING on policy. You are HELPING voters. But you are LOSING media, and because of that, you are LOSING the hearts and minds of voters. pic.twitter.com/7fjL6xoPo5 — Will Stancil (@whstancil) October 6, 2023 I get the frustration over the headlines, but there's ...continue reading "Economic reporting is not biased against liberals"
Nagorno-Karabakh—better known as Artsakh—is a smallish (100,000 people) Armenian enclave in Azerbaijan. It's long been recognized as Azerbaijani territory, but for many years it's been effectively controlled by Armenia. Until a couple of weeks ago, that is, when long-simmering conflict in the region ended abruptly with a lightning military takeover by Azerbaijani forces. Within a ...continue reading "What happened in Artsakh?"
Here's the medium-term trend in blue-collar wages:¹ Wages are up slightly over the past year but have been dead flat for all of 2023. I know I bore everyone with repetition, but this is not the sign of a tight labor market. ¹Using an estimate for September inflation.
The American economy gained 336,000 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 246,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate stayed the same at 3.8%. This is a nice, strong jobs report. It's not world beating, and job growth remains ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs through September"
And now for something completely out of the blue. Let us consider the most widely used grading scale in American schools and colleges. It looks like this: A straight-A average is a 4.0. A B+ is a 3.5. The lowest grade is an F. Even if you blow off an assignment completely, that's still the ...continue reading "How much is an F worth?"
With mortgage rates continuing to climb, here's an updated chart showing the average monthly payment on a 30-year mortgage: Monthly mortgage payments are still very high, but they've dropped since their peak thanks to falling home prices. They're about the same as they were one year ago.
While we're on the subject of declining life expectancies for high school dropouts, here's another look at things: This is for people with low incomes, which is not the same thing as dropouts. Still, it's in the same ballpark, so this chart tells us a few things: Income for the poor has gone up fairly ...continue reading "Stagnant life expectancies for the poor probably aren’t related to health care"
The Washington Post is running a series of pieces about declining life expectancies in the US, and it reminds me of this chart: The real problem with falling life expectancies is with high school dropouts, not just everyone without a BA. That got me curious about the economic decline of high school dropouts. I was ...continue reading "Falling life expectancies aren’t about jobs or pay"
Ukraine's attacks on Russian ships docked in Crimea have proven remarkable effective—and apparently unstoppable: Russia has moved powerful vessels including three attack submarines and two frigates from Sevastopol to other ports in Russia and Crimea that offer better protection, according to Western officials and satellite images verified by naval experts. ....The move represents a remarkable ...continue reading "Russia moves naval fleet out of Sevastopol"
I'm repeating myself a lot this week, but let's do it one more time. The tradition that the minority party doesn't interfere with the majority's election of a Speaker is a strong one—and for good reason. Suppose, for example, that some moderate Republican had the support of 30 other Republicans. In other words, very fringe ...continue reading "The minority should stick to tradition and shut up during elections for Speaker"
Just because I continue to think that a lot of people still don't get this, here are two charts showing wages and inflation. The first starts in 2019: As you can see, every measure of wages has risen more than inflation. Now here it is over just the past year: Once again, wages have outpaced ...continue reading "Charts of the day: Wages have beaten inflation over the past year"
This is not news, I know, but here are the concrete numbers: As of mid-September, when this poll was in the field, Republican support for ongoing military aid to Ukraine had dropped to 50%. This doesn't augur well for "We're on your side, through thick and thin, forever."
“McCarthy mocked Biden’s age and mental acuity in public, while privately telling allies that he found the president sharp and substantive in their conversations — a contradiction that left a deep impression on the White House” https://t.co/w5RfmQpYYx — Jonathan Lemire (@JonLemire) October 4, 2023
This is the stained glass window in the Bayeux Cathedral. We were in Bayeux to see the famous Bayeux tapestry, which is more than 200 feet long and displayed in a ver-r-r-y long case. When we were done, I hopped over to the cathedral to look around, and then barely made it back to the ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
This is truly great stuff from National Review's Noah Rothman: On Tuesday night, the House Administration Committee delivered the news to former speaker Nancy Pelosi that she would have to vacate her “hideaway” office in the Capitol, a small chamber conveniently located closer to where the legislative action takes place. On Wednesday morning, onetime Democratic ...continue reading "McCarthy betrayed Democrats over and over. It’s absurd to think they should have bailed him out."
Trump Solicitor General Noel Francisco would like to get rid of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Fair enough. Lots of conservatives don't like it. But if he wants the Supreme Court to do this he has to provide them with a reason. That reason, it turns out, has to do with funding. The CFPB is ...continue reading "The CFPB appears safe for now"