Month: August 2024

Dylan Matthews says that a sign of aging is that he's become more concerned about the national debt. Maybe. But I was old back in 2010 and I'm old now, and I agree that this is all due to the fact that things have changed:

The 2024 economy is not the 2011 economy. Interest rates are much higher. Unemployment is at 4 percent, a number that in 2011 we didn’t dare dream of. Wages are rising, especially for the lowest-income workers. We had the first major inflation episode in 40 years, though it finally appears to be subsiding. And the national debt is climbing higher and higher.

Yep. You can read Dylan's piece if you want the full 4,500 word (!) breakdown, but I'll limit myself to a thousand words in the form of a single picture. This is a simplified version of a chart from the Center for American Progress:

If it weren't for Republican tax cuts, the national debt would currently be at 60% of GDP, a very non-scary level.

Our deficit problem is very simple. General spending hasn't increased, so it's not to blame. Social Security and Medicare spending have increased, but there's not much to be done about that. It's demographics, and both programs are far too popular to be meaningfully cut. Likewise, the social safety net can be cut in only small ways.

There's only one way to rein in the deficit: higher taxes. But Republicans won't allow it—and until that changes there's nothing we can do. Ignore anyone who tries to tell you it's any more complicated than that.

Did Tim Walz force Minnesota schools to put tampons in boys' bathrooms? Daniel Dale says no:

All 15 of the districts that responded Friday to a CNN survey of 25 districts, including the Minneapolis and St. Paul districts in the state’s two most populous cities, said they comply with the law without providing tampons in traditional boys’ bathrooms.

This is the same thing I kinda sorta reported a week ago. But why didn't I survey Minnesota's school districts? Because I'm lazy and I don't have a boss who can make me. The real question is why some Minnesota reporter has never done this, given that it's been live issue there for months. Beats me. For some reason it took CNN to do the job.

This is a good example of an increasing trend on the right: inventing things that could be true and then going completely nuts about it. Frequently, these micro-panics turn out to be about things that have never happened or, just maybe, have happened once or twice. But that's enough to cause a meltdown about the decline of Western civilization.

Honestly, people need to get a grip. Find a hobby or something instead of going into hysterics over every little thing. Fox News is bad for your health.

Many people have come up to me recently and said, "Mr. Drum, sir, was Trump's news conference yesterday really a news conference?"

Sorry. It just amuses me that when people describe a Trump speech they now say things like "he told a few sir stories and then...." But let's return to that news conference on Thursday. Trump blathered for the first 47 minutes and then took questions for 34 minutes. Is it really a news conference if you spend less than half the time taking questions from reporters?

I'll let you decide that for yourself. I'm more interested in who actually attended the "news conference." For starters, Trump was greeted with cheers and applause when he came out, which doesn't strike me as standard reporter behavior. And the questions! With only one or two exceptions, every question was along the lines of either (a) "What is it that makes you so great?" or (b) "Your opponent is obviously a disaster, right?"

Do you think I'm making this up? Being a partisan hack? Judge for yourself. Here is every question that was asked yesterday:

It's been reported that you recently spoke with Prime Minister Netanyahu, maybe as recently as yesterday. Can you clarify when the last time was you talked to him and what advice, if any, you're giving him about a ceasefire, about ending this war

You've spoken very passionately about how God saved your life. And I'm wondering, have you put much thought into why God saved your life? As in, for what purpose has he been shielding and protecting you?

We're talking about credit card debt for just a second. You've got all these records. 48 percent up. In many families going into debt just to pay for groceries. What's your message to Americans right now, that you can make America affordable again?

Follow-up: Kamala has been promising on day one, I'll do this. And for basically four years, she's promised this day one. What will you do on day one to turn this country around?

Many of your allies who want you to win in November say your current strategy isn't working, that you need to stop with the personal attacks on Kamala Harris and deliver a more disciplined message. Do you agree?

Nikki Haley told our Bret Baier that Republicans need to stop whining about Kamala Harris. Focus on courting those independents, of suburban women, the moderates out there. What do you think of that strategy, and would you consider having Nikki Haley on the campaign trail with you?

Vice President Kamala Harris wants to put a ban on price gouging. Do you think that the federal government is should be responsible for determining food prices?

I know you're saying that you're leading in some polling, but there is other polling out there. Fox News poll out just yesterday has you up by just one point. How do you break—

You talked about how COVID from China was a fence too far. What's your plan for holding China accountable if you're reelected?

You referenced your conversation with Elon Musk earlier this week. You praised how he treats workers, saying they go on strike, and you say that's OK, you're all gone, you're all gone, so every one of you is gone. Are you really comfortable with companies threatening to fire workers who go on strike?

Governor Tim Walz is out on the campaign trail today, and he's been saying that he believes that you want things to get worse so that you can campaign on it, that you're rooting for failure. What's your response to that?

Do you regret debating President Biden so early in the race?

There were some very mild questions about whether personal attacks were a good idea and whether the polls are turning against him. And for some reason, Trump took a question from a reporter who obviously didn't like the idea of firing workers who are on strike. Aside from that, you can't even describe the questions as softballs. They were plants.

Were there any real reporters at yesterday's event who can explain what happened?

Kamala Harris announced her new Trump-killing populist economic plan today:

Harris’s most surprising policy announcement was her plan to ban “price gouging” in grocery and food prices. While details were sparse, the measure would include authorizing the Federal Trade Commission to impose large fines on grocery stores that impose “excessive” price hikes on customers, her campaign said.

Hmmm. Is it true that grocery stores have been gouging us? Let's take a look at grocery store profits:

This is from an industry trade group, and it looks like maybe grocery stores were gouging us during the COVID outbreak, just like everyone else seemed to be doing. Corporate America must be yearning for another pandemic to bring back those good old days.

But that didn't last, and net profits now are back to their historical average. That's a pretty good sign that prices are back to normal too. On the other hand, there's this from the FTC:

Grocery store markups increased moderately during the pandemic and have stayed elevated ever since.

So take your pick. I'm inclined to give more weight to net profits, since it includes everything by definition. But there's one thing we can all agree on: grocery chains sure took advantage of pandemic shortages to screw their customers. They deserve some time in the barrel.

This is Charlie peeking out from behind the drapes while Hilbert waves a tail in his face. Eventually Charlie couldn't control himself any longer and walked outside to give Hilbert a swat. Between these two, however, a "swat" is just the barest contact of paw to head. It's possible Hilbert never even felt it.

Border crossings plummeted below 100,000 in July, the first time this has happened since 2020:

Out of this total, 56,000 were caught trying to cross the border illegally. The rest were asylum seekers who presented themselves at border stations.

It's maybe worth noting that this decline is due to President Biden's new policy of immediately turning away asylum seekers who cross the border illegally. This is almost certainly not legal and will be overturned in court. Normally, that means Republicans would chastise him for "unlawful" actions, but not this time. Funny, isn't it?

I'm beating a dead horse on this topic, but here is inflation in the US over the past three years:

In 2022 the Fed began raising interest rates. By June, rates went above 1% for the first time.

In July monthly inflation abruptly fell off the map and then stayed steady around 3% for the next two years, all while the Fed kept raising rates and then kept them high.

Quantitative tightening followed the same pattern. It began in May and didn't hit -2% until July. By then inflation had already tumbled.

If you track PCE inflation instead of CPI you get the same result.

In light of this, does anyone still think it's credible that Fed actions had any serious impact on bringing down inflation? Or that loosening policy is likely to raise inflation? Please explain in 50,000 words or less.

Donald Trump says he want to eliminate income taxes on Social Security benefits. These taxes are currently deposited in the Social Security and Medicare trust funds, a policy that was put in place under Ronald Reagan in order to help Medicare and Social Security finances.

So what happens to Social Security and Medicare if this tax goes away? Here's an estimate from the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget:

Under Trump's proposal, the Social Security Trust Fund becomes insolvent a year earlier and the Medicare Trust Fund becomes insolvent six years earlier. Now you know.

I see that Donald Trump is still droning on about Kamala Harris's Time cover. It's fake, maybe, or it looks like Melania or Time is in the tank for Kamala or something. Just in case you're wondering what this is all about, here's the Time cover and the Getty photograph it's based on:

It's an ordinary photo illustration, and it looks precisely like Kamala Harris. Everyone satisfied?

Here's the latest from Vox:

The hidden reason why your power bill is so high

The price of electricity is continuing to rise across the United States, and there’s no end in sight. Why are our electricity bills getting so expensive? Energy prices have been creeping up across the nation for over a decade. The latest consumer price index saw inflation dip below 3 percent for the first time since 2021, but inflation for electricity prices nationwide remains stubbornly high at 4.9 percent.

This stuff is so exasperating. If you're going to write 2,000 words about the high cost of electricity, the first thing you should do is check to see if the cost of electricity is actually high. Here it is over the past decade:

Electricity has grown almost exactly in line with overall inflation and it's grown less than wages. Our electricity bills haven't been getting more expensive.

If you want to write a piece about the cost of electricity, fine. But like so many other reporters, the author of this piece is desperate for a hook, and the hook has to be that electricity costs are drowning us. I'm tempted to say he didn't even bother to check first, but it's worse that that: He cherry picked one month of moderately high electricity inflation (4.9% in July) to make his case, which means he did look at the cost of electricity. And then he decided to go ahead anyway.

This is so goddamn tiresome. If you're going to write a story about X, first check to see if X is true. If it's not, then spike the story. Sorry. I know you want to write it. But you can't. Why is this so hard?