Month: August 2023

The New York Times suggests that the war against woke isn't doing any better than the war against Christmas. Even Republican voters are tired of it:

When presented with the choice between two hypothetical Republican candidates, only 24 percent of national Republican voters opted for a “a candidate who focuses on defeating radical ‘woke’ ideology in our schools, media and culture” over “a candidate who focuses on restoring law and order in our streets and at the border.”

Vivek Ramaswamy may be a no-hope candidate for the Republican nomination, but he made his name as an anti-woke doomsayer. That was only two years ago, but today he says he's already moved on:

In an interview, Mr. Ramaswamy said the evolving views of the electorate were important, and he had adapted to them....“At the time I came to be focused on this issue, no one knew what the word was,” he said. “Now that they have caught up, the puck has moved. It’s in my rearview mirror as well.”

Law and order and border security have become stand-ins for “fortitude,” he said, and that is clearly what Republican voters are craving.

Among Republicans, the border is pretty clearly the issue with the most legs. It's not always the top concern of the moment, but year in and year out it's always near the top of the list. And it's at record highs this year:

Donald Trump might not be the smartest guy in the room, but he has a native shrewdness about people. Immigration was his top issue on the day he descended from Trump Tower onto our TV screens, and it's still his top issue today.¹

¹Aside from complaining about how badly everyone treats him, of course.

Here are two measures of consumer confidence, one from an OECD survey and one from the University of Michigan:

Both measures agree that consumer confidence has been rising over the past year. However, it's still way below normal. It's no wonder that the economy hasn't yet helped improve Joe Biden's approval rating.

Paul Krugman has a column today about interest on the national debt. It's going up thanks to the Fed's rate hikes, but he says it's not likely to be a long-term problem. His explanation gets a little complicated, though, so I'd like to simplify it. Here is every significant Fed interest rate hike from the past 60 years:

With one exception, interest rate hikes tend to last 3-4 years before reverting to their previous level—and while you might want to argue with my precise figures, there's no point in that. All I'm saying is simple: the Fed raises rates and the Fed lowers rates. Our current rate hike will likely be over by 2025 or so. And when that happens, interest on the national debt will go down.

Krugman says the same thing with a formula: on average, interest rates tend to be lower than GDP growth, so over the long term they aren't a problem. In our present case, I'd say the longer term is another couple of years, and that's all.

August 3rd: Donald Trump receives a warning from the judge overseeing his arraignment.

August 4th: Donald Trump responds.

A "spokesman" later "clarified" that Trump was referring only to "RINO, China-loving, dishonest special interest groups and Super PACs." Approximately no one believes this, least of all Jack Smith, who's prosecuting Trump:

Federal prosecutors asked a judge on Friday for a protective order limiting what Donald Trump and his team can say about the criminal case against him....Prosecutors’ request for the protective order came a day after Trump pleaded not guilty to charges that he orchestrated a criminal conspiracy to forcibly overturn his 2020 election loss to Joe Biden.

You have to admit that Trump keeps things lively.

Why is it so hot? The latest theory making the rounds is that it's due to a change in shipping regulations. In 2020 the International Maritime Organization reduced the allowable sulphur content of bunker fuel to 0.5%, which was great for human health but not so great for global warming. You see, sulphur emissions cool the climate, so if you reduce them the climate warms up.

But don't be too quick to believe this. Here's a bit of history followed by some estimates of what the new rules mean for climate change.

In 1997 the IMO adopted what's known as Annex VI, which took effect in 2005. It set a maximum sulphur content of 4.5%. In 2012 this went down to 3.5% and in 2020 to 0.5%. However, SO₂ emissions didn't respond strongly in every case:

A steady increase in shipping overwhelmed the 2005 limit, and the 3.5% limit had only a modest effect. However, the 0.5% limit in 2020 made a big difference.

But what effect did this have on global warming? For that we need to compare two charts from a 2009 analysis of sulphur limits. Pay attention to the green lines:

The chart on the left shows the climate effect if emissions had stayed at year 2000 levels. The chart on the right shows the effect if emissions are cut by 90%.

After 50 years, global temps go up about .051°C if nothing is done. Temps go up only 0.0058°C if sulphur emissions are cut. This comes to a difference of 0.045°C. That's four-hundredths of a degree.

But it hasn't been 50 years since the new limits were set. It's been three years. The net effect on global temps so far has been less than 0.02°C, which is lower than the normal increase for a single year. In comparison, global temps in 2023 are 0.16°C higher than last year, so sulphur emissions are—at most—responsible for only one-eighth of the increase. The other seven-eighths are likely due to the eruption of a huge undersea volcano near Tonga last year and an especially strong El Niño this year.

Bottom line: the new sulphur rules do have an effect, but so far a pretty small one. They've played only a tiny role in this year's long hot summer.

The New York Times tells us today about yet more billionaire assistance propping up the not-so-down-to-earth lifestyle of Supreme Court justice Clarence Thomas. In 1999 he bought a used RV that he uses to travel around the country:

His Prevost Marathon cost $267,230, according to title history records obtained by The New York Times. And Justice Thomas, who in the ensuing years would tell friends how he had scrimped and saved to afford the motor coach, did not buy it on his own. In fact, the purchase was underwritten, at least in part, by Anthony Welters, a close friend who made his fortune in the health care industry.

....Roughly nine years later, “the loan was satisfied,” Mr. Welters added....He would not say how much he had lent Justice Thomas, how much the justice had repaid and whether any of the debt had been forgiven or otherwise discharged. He declined to provide The Times with a copy of a loan agreement — or even say if one existed. Nor would he share the basic terms of the loan, such as what, if any, interest rate had been charged or whether Justice Thomas had adhered to an agreed-upon repayment schedule.

It's almost pointless to say this, but apparently Supreme Court justices don't have to disclose vehicle loans, so there's nothing technically illegal about this. Assuming, of course, that the loan was made at market rates and was fully paid back, which neither Welters nor Thomas is willing to prove.

I wish I were a Supreme Court justice. Sounds like a nice gig.

The chart below shows the net number of people added to corporate payrolls each month in the US. As you can see, it's been going steadily down for the past two years:

I let Excel draw two trendlines through the raw data. If things level off, we get a soft landing. If a straight line is a better predictor, we get to zero by the start of 2024 and then go negative.

There's not really any strong reason to prefer one trendline over the other. They're both equally good fits. It all depends on whether you think the Fed's rate hikes (a) have already done their work and are fading away, or (b) will start to have their biggest impact later this year.

I think it's the latter, but who knows? Which one we get is sure going to make a big difference to next year's election, though.

This is Charlie in his favorite lizard hunting grounds. It's the west side of our backyard, which is full of ferns and other low-growing little plants, which makes it a great place to slink around and pretend no one can see you.

A recent study in Sweden randomly assigned breast cancer screenings to either an AI or a human radiologist. Guess which one did better?

There were 244 screen-detected cancers...in the intervention group and 203 cancers...in the control group. Compared with the control group, the screen-reading workload of radiologists was reduced by 44.3% using AI-assisted techniques.

That's a 20.2% improvement in cancer detection with only half as much work from radiologists. In blunter terms, it means that if AI were used for everyone a whole bunch of radiologists could be let go—and those remaining would get paid a lot less.

I don't imagine this will be allowed to happen without a fight. If AI improves and further testing results are positive, hospitals will be eager to use it. The American Board of Radiology might be less thrilled.

The Fifth Circuit Court is the most conservative in the country. But sometimes you get lucky when a three-judge panel is randomly chosen to hear your appeal. That happened today in a ruling handed down about Section 241 of Mississippi's state constitution, which disenfranchises anyone convicted of a felony—forever. This case ended up being heard by three old judges appointed by Carter, Reagan, and Clinton, not young firebrand conservatives appointed by the likes of George W. Bush or Donald Trump.

As a result, a majority held, first, that Section 241, which was written in 1890, had explicitly racist underpinnnings. They recounted this history in some detail before pointing out that it continues to be applied disproportionately to Black people:

Sections 241 and 253 continue to be part of the Mississippi Constitution and over the years they have been remarkably effective in achieving their original, racially discriminatory aim. In 2017, 36% of voting-age citizens in Mississippi were black. Yet...of the nearly 29,000 Mississippians who were convicted of disenfranchising offenses and have completed all terms of their sentences between 1994 and 2017, 58%—or more than 17,000 individuals—were black. Only 36% were white.

Second, they ruled that Section 241 had no legitimate rehabilitative, deterrent, or retributive function. Also, crucially, a large majority of states have decided that contemporary mores don't allow permanent and widespread disenfranchisement:

“No right is more precious in a free country” than the right to vote....Mississippi denies this precious right to a large class of its citizens, automatically, mechanically, and with no thought given to whether it is proportionate as punishment for an amorphous and partial list of crimes. In so excluding former offenders from a basic aspect of democratic life, often long after their sentences have been served, Mississippi inflicts a disproportionate punishment that has been rejected by a majority of the states and, in the independent judgment of this court informed by our precedents, is at odds with society’s evolving standards of decency. Section 241 therefore exacts a cruel and unusual punishment on Plaintiffs.

There is, of course, a downside to getting lucky judges: If the case is reheard by the entire court, it might well get reversed. Stay tuned.