Kevin Drum

Last year the Fed issued some new banking rules. Big banks didn't like them, so they teamed up a few weeks ago with the US Chamber of Commerce to sue. They chose to file their suit in Amarillo, Texas, where it was guaranteed to be heard by Matthew Kacsmaryk, a reliable Republican judge.

The Chamber of Commerce did the same thing in February when it sued the CFPB over late fees, but it got a shock: the reliable Texas judge in the case ruled that since the Chamber, the CFPB, and nearly all the lawyers in the case resided in Washington DC, it was ridiculous to hear the case in Forth Worth. He transferred the case to the DC district court.

But it turns out the Chamber's big mistake in the CFPB case was picking a judge who wasn't quite reliable enough. On Friday Kacsmaryk did what a made man is supposed to do: he kept the banking case and quickly imposed a nationwide injunction against the new rules. This despite the fact that, again, the Chamber, the American Banking Association, the Fed, and nearly all the lawyers in the case reside in Washington DC.

In other words, venue shopping isn't quite over yet, despite new rules and the example of Mark Pittman in the CFPB case. The key is to pick a judge who's enough of a zealot that he doesn't care about appearances. Matthew Kacsmaryk is that man, and not just in abortion cases.

(LONG AND POSSIBLY POINTLESS) POSTSCRIPT: The Fed case is about the Community Reinvestment Act, which is designed to force banks to fairly lend money to everyone in their communities, even poor people. Back when it was passed, "communities" meant the places where the banks had physical branches, since that was where they did business.

But times change, and today banks lend all over the place thanks to mobile and online banking. So the Fed and a few other agencies issued a new rule that, among other things, more broadly defines "communities" to mean wherever banks do lending.

Maybe this makes sense, maybe it doesn't. However, since I'm easily amused, I was amused by Kacsmaryk's effort to own the Fed via his pedantic insistence on quoting the dictionary about what "community" means:

That the word “community” necessarily involves a limited geographic area is indisputable.... “the people with common interests living in a particular area” and a “population of various kinds of individuals . . . in a common location.” Community, MERRIAM-WEBSTER, www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/community, 2024).

But just as banks are now online, so are people like me. It's the work of a few seconds to bring up the exact definition that Kacsmaryk relied on. Here it is:

What a judge! Webster's has six separate definitions of community, and four of the six specifically define it as a group of people with common interests but no geographical boundary.

wtf? Did Kacsmaryk seriously think that no one besides him could open a dictionary and look at its definitions? He's not just a hack, he's an idiot. Which, of course, is perfect for the Chamber of Commerce.

I can't say this has never happened before, but I noticed something while reading the LA Times at breakfast this morning: it had no ads. The A section had literally not a single ad, and the B section had a few obituaries and classified ads, but not a single display ad. Not one.

This is not to say there was nothing at all. Saturday is the day for the weekly "Hot Property" supplement, which is a thick—and profitable—collection of high-end real estate for sale. So the Times is not quite without any ad revenue at all.

Still, not a single display ad in the entire regular newspaper. If you want to know why local papers are failing, this is a sign of the times.

What am I?

I don't mean this in some grand philosophical sense. I just mean politically. Back in the day I was fond of calling myself an FDR liberal, but while that had the right vibe it wasn't easily understood.

Then for a while it seemed like everyone was consumed by Europe and I said, screw it, I'm a social democrat. That leaves plenty of scope and describes me pretty well, but again, it's pretty easily misunderstood, especially here in America.

So I'd say, it just means I'm a pragmatic liberal. Which is correct, but not especially descriptive.

Or maybe a center lefty. Also correct, but only for certain things and among certain crowds. And it's both boring and redolent of journalese.

Neoliberal shill? That really only means I'm a free-market capitalist to some extent or another, and anyway, it's just a joke.

Liberal but not progressive? That's only partly true, and even I'm not 100% sure what it means these days.

So what now? I'm tempted to say I'm a normie liberal, which suggests that I'm in favor of universal health care and abortion for all but distinguishes me from the ultra-woke Twitter lunatics. Unfortunately, this term is probably pretty well understood on Twitter but not necessarily anywhere else.

So what am I?

Do I have any doctors in the audience? I have a question for you.

Today I had a prostate biopsy. It was scheduled for 8 am, which meant I had to get up at 6 am in order to take the required antibiotic and then give myself an enema.

Next Friday I get the results. In a 7 am video call.

When I was up at City of Hope last year, I went into the day hospital every morning. This was not a time sensitive thing: it was mainly to give me a couple of hours of IV fluids. But they insisted on booking me to come in at 7 am every single day. (I eventually switched to a 9 am slot, but only after some truly superlative whining and moaning.)

A few years ago Marian had some minor surgery. She was required to present herself at 6 am.

And of course there are the famous 4 am blood draws every morning when you're in the hospital.

I think you can see where this is going. Why the insistence on scheduling procedures in the dead of morning? I know the official excuse: we have to do it in the morning because we have patient consults in the afternoon. But come on. You could do it the other way just as easily. Or you could do procedures early on some days and late on others, which would accommodate patients of all preferences.

Partly this is just the usual gripe of us night owls about how the world is run by early birds who think nothing of brightly saying, "Hey, let's get an early start on the day and have a 7 am staff meeting." (But who would be lynched if they suggested staying late for a 6 pm staff meeting.)

But mainly I just want to know the answer. Why are doctors like this? I realize you were all tortured during your residencies and the senior doctors just laughed if you complained, and believe me, I sympathize. But that's no reason to take it out on your patients for the rest of your lives.

So what's the deal?

From Jonathan Cohen, an expert on lotteries:

Lotteries are run by state agencies, and they’re exempt from truth in advertising laws.

Huh. This is why, for some reason, state lotteries are allowed to advertise jackpots as the sum of 30 years of payments, rather than the amount they'll actually give you tomorrow if you win.

Which is pretty strange if you think about it. “No one would let you state it in that form if it were a financial product,” says Charles Clotfelter. But we're all so used to it that we barely even notice it anymore.

Bob Somerby was watching TV the other night and heard something interesting:

We have this asylum law where, if you get to the United States, we are going to hear your asylum claim.... The president cannot fix that. And as long as that's the rule—that, get here and you can stay as long as you say the magic words: "I have a credible fear of returning to my country"—we're not going to fix the border.

Bob thought this was interesting because he hadn't ever heard anyone say this straightforwardly before. Certainly not President Biden.

Which.......might be true? I've written about asylum before, but usually I just assume everyone knows it's a problem and then move on from there. So in case you don't, here it is in plain words: If you get across the border and claim asylum, international law—long ago incorporated into US law as well—requires that we hear your case. You get to stay until we do.

So how big a problem is this? Here's a chart that tells the story:

Up through 2014 asylum was a minor part of border enforcement. But starting in 2015 it became a bigger and bigger share of our migrant numbers.¹ In 2018 nearly every border crosser from the previous year applied for asylum.² ³

At that point it leveled off while ordinary illegal immigration rose, and then in 2021 it began skyrocketing again. In 2023 about 800,000 people applied for asylum.

But— it's worth noting that even this huge number is only about a third of the total migrant population. Asylum has indeed become an ever growing problem, but ordinary illegal immigration is still a much bigger one.

¹A note about language: if you cross the border without permission, you're an illegal immigrant. But if you show up at a port of entry and apply for asylum you aren't. Applying for asylum is entirely legal. So what do we call all these people? I'm calling them migrants here for lack of a better word, since this generally implies anyone who's entered the country irregularly without applying for the appropriate visa.

²You have up to a year to apply for asylum once you're on US territory. For that reason, asylum claims usually correlate with the previous year's migrant numbers.

³In case you're curious, roughly half of all asylum claims end up in court and about half of those are approved. So, give or take, about a quarter to a third of all asylum seekers are successful.

Hilbert in his box.

I can hardly stand to pass this along, but here it is:

School-age children affected by the water crisis in Flint, Mich., nearly a decade ago suffered significant and lasting academic setbacks, according to a study released Wednesday, showing the disaster’s profound impact on a generation of children.

....The learning gap was especially prevalent among younger students in third through fifth grades and those of lower socioeconomic status. There was also an 8 percent increase in the number of students with special needs, especially among school-age boys.

....But researchers were puzzled to find that children who weren’t directly exposed to contaminated water at home still faced academic challenges, suggesting there were society-wide ripple effects.

This is from the Washington Post a couple of weeks ago. There's only one problem: it's completely wrong.

I don't blame the Post for this. The study they relied on really did say all this. The problem is that it left out one big thing: At the same time as the Flint water crisis, Michigan changed its educational testing. Scores went down because of the test change, which is why it affected everyone. For example, here's a chart from a paper published in 2023:

Scores dropped everywhere in Michigan when M-STEP was adopted. Nothing special happened in Flint.

So why the increase in special ed kids? What most likely happened was a nocebo effect. This is sort of the opposite of a placebo: it's when people experience something because they were told it might happen. That's the conclusion of the 2023 paper:

Between 2011 and 2019, including the 2014-15 crisis period, the incidence of elevated blood lead in Flint children (≥ 5µg/dL) was always at least 47% lower than in the control city of Detroit.... There is actually an inverse relationship between childhood blood lead and special education enrollment in Flint.

This study failed to confirm any positive association between actual childhood blood lead levels and special education enrollment in Flint. Negative psychological effects associated with media predictions of brain damage could have created a self-fulfilling prophecy via a nocebo effect. The findings demonstrate a need for improved media coverage of complex events like the Flint Water Crisis.

This just kills me every time it comes up. I hate hate hate having to sound like I'm downplaying the effect of lead exposure on kids, which is a serious problem. But the facts are stubborn: the Flint water crisis didn't last very long; blood lead levels in Flint kids changed only modestly; and there's very little reason to think it had any serious or widespread effect on IQ or school performance.

But years of yelling and screaming about how Flint kids have been ruined for life has probably convinced a lot of them that they're ruined for life. With rare exceptions, they aren't, and they never should have been told that.

The Census Bureau has released some new survey data about AI use and it's pretty interesting. Overall use of AI is still fairly low: about 5.4% of firms report using it now, expected to rise to 6.6% in autumn. Of those firms who report using AI, here's what they say they're using it for:

All told, this means that in the near future about a third of AI will be used to replace workers and another third will be used to replace existing computer systems.

Here are the top ten industries by expected use of AI in the near future:

Food service and retail are fascinating: both report fairly limited use of AI right now but expect huge increases over the next few months.

Finally, here is overall AI use by state:

Colorado is #1. I wouldn't have guessed that. Mississippi is #50. I would have guessed that.

Via the New York Times, here's an interesting look at the political/cultural orientation of various AI models that are publicly available and widely used. It comes from a paper by David Rozado, who did the testing.

On the left are the results from base, untrained AI engines made by OpenAI and Meta. They're pretty centrist.

On the right are the results from various commercial AIs that have been fully trained. These are the products you actually use. They all tend toward lefty libertarianism, but some more than others:

The model furthest to the left is Google's Gemini, which is no surprise. Anthropic's Claude is the closest to centrist of the best-known models. Both GPT-4 and Twitter's Grok are close, but slightly more lefty.

Rozado also showed that it's fairly easy to train an AI to be reliably liberal or conservative. You just have them read the appropriate books and magazines.

Aside from Google, the major chatbot models aren't especially ideological, but they're definitely not conservative. Is that because of their Silicon Valley heritage or just because our written culture leans a bit to the left? Or something else? My own guess is that it's partly both of those plus one other thing: all the models are explicitly trained to not be racist/sexist/hateful/etc. Conservatives may not want to hear this, but like it or not, that pushes them away from the modern right wing.