Spending figures are released along with inflation figures, so today we got the December numbers for consumer expenditures. They were up 6.7% from November and 3.2% from a year ago. However, since I said this morning that I like quarterly figures these days, here's the quarterly growth rate:
Very respectable. The holiday season was strong and people are continuing to spend money. I continue to hold my breath over the prospect of a recession soon, but at the moment it sure looks like everything is going fine.
On a conventional year-over-year basis, headline PCE inflation came in at 2.6% and core inflation was 2.9%.
I've lately become attracted to quarterly rates for everything: it's a good compromise between the volatility of monthly figures and the staleness of year-over-year figures. The downside, of course, is that quarterly figures are available only once a quarter. But we happen to have just ended a quarter, so here are the quarterly figures for headline and core PCE:
I don't generally like to go back and forth on a single argument too much. After both sides have had a couple of chances to have their say, I usually feel like that's enough. Further bickering just ends up going down a rabbit hole.
But today is an exception because it gives me a chance to make a broader point. Bob Somerby agrees with Donald Trump that our country has become incapable of solving even the smallest problems. By contrast, I think the United States, even now, is a problem solving machine. Here is Bob for a second go-around:
It's hard not to be briefly angry about some of what Kevin wrote. Murder rates, inequality, medical costs? The southern border and its spread into overwhelmed northern cities? The young female medical workers we overheard this Tuesday morning talking about the ways their relatives have dealt with various carjackings? When are we going to solve the nagging problem afflicting them and their family and friends?
It can be hard to avoid being briefly angry when Pollyanna arrives on the scene, saying we just haven't managed to solve that one yet. That's especially true when the whole blue world is warning us that our democracy will be taken away if Trump returns to the White House next year, as polling suggests he may do.
We're big fans of Kevin's work, though we think he's become a bit too sure of the idea that Nothing Much Is Actually Wrong and that every question can be settled through the use of statistical measures. (Needless to say, he may be right on both points!)
The big dilemma here is how to keep two thoughts in our heads at the same time:
The United States (and the world) have a lot of big problems.
There are always a lot of big problems. We don't have any more than usual, and probably even fewer.
I believe that both these things are true. This is decidedly not because I'm temperamentally cheerful. I'm chronically depressed (thanks Effexor!) and chronically fatigued (thanks chemotherapy!). I mostly think the moral character of the human race has only barely improved since we were fighting over bananas in the treetops.
So why do I believe that things are pretty good these days? It's partly because I'm interested in history—which, admittedly, can be a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it provides perspective, which can be a calming influence against the doomsayers. On the other hand, it can produce a world-weary belief that nothing is ever new. It's a needle you just have to do your best to thread.
It's also partly because I'm interested in numbers. Again, admittedly, I'm keenly aware of the dangers of impersonal, data-driven analysis. There are straightforward technical issues to be aware of, like reliance on averages that don't pick up on growing extremes. And there are fuzzier issues to be aware of, like missing out on emotionally-charged trends that will never show up in data tables.
At the same time, you can be deeply misled by ignoring numbers. We humans like to believe whatever we like to believe. But if you want to evaluate the world honestly, you need something to test your beliefs against. Like it or not, your best bet for that is a cool, evenhanded look at the strongest data you can find.
Right now, for example, inflation is about back to normal. It just is, but the only way to know that is to look at the numbers. Does that mean anger over inflation is gone? Of course not. But that anger, as real as it is, doesn't affect the ground truth that our recent inflationary surge was relatively short and mild. You can believe both things at once. You don't have to let the anger prompt you into a denial of reality.
Now back to problem solving. Bob mentions the current threat to democracy as an example of our inability to solve problems. It's true that people on both sides are screaming about this, but it's always been overblown. The Supreme Court handing down decisions you dislike is not a threat to democracy. The Electoral College—now in its 236th year—is not a threat to democracy. Joe Biden winning the presidency is not a threat to democracy. Electoral fraud—which is all but nonexistent—is not a threat to democracy. An attempted coup is a threat to democracy, but certainly less so when literally every branch of government summarily rejected it and Democrats have performed well in three consecutive elections. So while we haven't yet solved the democracy problem, we're surprisingly well along the way. Likewise, although right-wing populism remains a threat globally, the world has taken plenty of large steps toward rejecting it.
It is so, so easy to fall into despair. There are so many things we care about that we feel helpless to fight. There's so much human suffering, so much bigotry, so much war. In the political realm, the other side always seems powerful, monolithic, and relentless, while our side seems weak, divided, and uninspired. Both sides believe this. Add to this all our endless personal problems and our endless talking about them. It really can seem like things are falling apart.
But that needs to be tested against something. How much of it is the product of your day-to-day mood? Or spending too much time with Fox News? Or the general bias of the media toward the negative and sensational—which can fool you just as much as anyone? Or plain old recency bias? Problems today naturally seem worse than problems a century ago, and problems that affect you naturally seem worse than other people's problems. But do you really think America is a beaten giant? Have you even tried to overcome your personal mood and take a step back? Have you considered the fact that h. sapiens was practically designed to gripe constantly—so it means little that people have lots of complaints these days? Do those cold, impersonal numbers I post all the time sway you at least a little bit?
The lessons of history are hard because you have to remember history. Most of us don't, even from only a few years back. And the lessons of numbers are hard too, because for most of us they have no flavor. A hundred charts about crime aren't as persuasive as a single neighbor whose house was burglarized.
This is just human nature. None of us can overcome it. But we can at least try. And when you do, a whole new world opens up: You discover that an awful lot of things you believed aren't really true. Airplanes aren't falling out of the sky. Our educational system isn't a disaster. Crime isn't rampant. The economy doesn't suck. Social media doesn't turn our teens into suicidal wrecks. The world hasn't rejected democracy. Joe Biden isn't wildly unpopular. Electoral fraud isn't widespread. Young men aren't in crisis. The number of people who can't afford health insurance hasn't gone up. Remote learning didn't ruin our kids. The cost of college hasn't skyrocketed. The dollar isn't collapsing. Wages aren't going down. The poverty rate isn't going up. The safety net isn't in tatters. Income inequality isn't still widening. The carjacking rate hasn't gone up. Job satisfaction hasn't gone down. Bullying hasn't surged. Terrorism isn't increasing. Millennials aren't earning less than their parents. Democrats didn't steal the 2020 election. Discretionary federal spending isn't spiraling out of control. The startup rate of new businesses isn't going down. Teen pregnancies aren't rising.
Some things you think are bad really are. Only a fool would deny that. But not nearly as many as most people think. And there are lots and lots of positive developments to even things out. You just have to be willing to open your eyes and see them.
Alabama, having exhausted its other alternatives, executed Kenneth Eugene Smith tonight by fitting him with a mask and then pumping it full of nitrogen:
Witnesses saw Smith struggle as the gas began flowing into the mask that covered his entire face. He began writhing and thrashing for approximately two to four minutes, followed by around five minutes of heavy breathing.
This has prompted a lot of hand-wringing, but the convulsions are autonomic reactions. Smith was almost certainly unconscious when they happened.
The death penalty doesn't happen to be big hot button of mine, but I understand the opposition and I'm certainly OK with ending it. Still, if it's going to be done, I have a hard time understanding the endless controversies over the precise method it's applied. Nitrogen is fine, and almost certainly painless. Ditto for helium, once a favored method of suicide. That's because human choking reflexes don't respond to what kind of gas you inhale, only to a buildup of carbon dioxide. Obviously you don't get that when you breathe pure helium or nitrogen, so you barely even know anything is wrong. This is why accidental asphyxiation via nitrogen is fairly common.
Hanging is also painless. So is the guillotine. So is a firing squad if it's not botched. By contrast, lethal injection is idiotically complicated and never should have been adopted.
Opposing the death penalty is fine. But trying to pretend that even a brief and theoretical moment of discomfort is the real problem? That makes no sense.
She is appealing to the Republicans and Republican-leaning independents that Trump needs to substantially bring home in November to beat Biden. Killing her with kindness would make much more sense for Trump than, in irate speeches and unhinged social media posts, reminding her voters why they don’t like him in the first place.
Among ordinary people, sure, this would be true. But Trump's entire MO revolves around the twin ideas of revenge and retribution. He needs people to be scared of him, and that means convincing them that he'll come after anyone who crosses him. The only way to do that is to, in fact, come after anyone who crosses him.
By threatening Haley—and anyone who supports her—he's solidifying his reputation. He's making it clear that anyone who doesn't support Trump will be punished, something he considers vital to his success. In Trump's thuggish version of realpolitik, it's far more important than wheezy old ideas about how to attract one group of voters or another.
Three days ago I called Rep. James Comer a big fat liar. Since then, we've been on the edge of our seats wondering if I was right. Did he, in fact, lie about the testimony of Kevin Morris in the Hunter Biden affair?
Of course he did. A transcript of Morris's testimony was released on Tuesday and Philip Bump read it so I don't have to. Morris testified in detail about how he met Hunter; about the money he loaned him; and about the fact that he met Joe Biden only briefly on a couple of occasions:
Consider how Comer framed all of this. That the two met at a fundraiser and then Morris began paying Hunter Biden’s tax bills to insulate Joe Biden. That these were “loans” — implying they weren’t. That this generosity granted Morris dubious access to Joe Biden. None of this is justified by Morris’s testimony; Comer is instead simply trying to frame Morris’s testimony in negative terms.
He does so, presumably, because he knows that his close allies in right-wing media will not read the primary document and because he is signaling how the testimony should be contextualized.
It's just the usual lying about stuff that's in no way illegal, unethical, suspicious, or wrong in any way. Par for the course.
Barbie got nominated for Best Picture but Greta Gerwig was snubbed in the Best Director category. Snubbed! It's an outrage!
Oh, calm down. This whole "snubbed" meme has always been idiotic, and it's maybe even more idiotic this year than before. Greta Gerwig likely missed out for a couple of banal reasons:
There are ten Best Picture nominees and only five Best Director nominees. Five good directors are always going to get left out.
Barbie was a traditional summer tentpole movie, a semi-cartoon crowd pleaser. For better or worse, those kinds of movies have never been Oscar bait. The Academy likes to think of itself as more serious.
This is probably all that's going on. Though I admit I think it's odd that Ryan Gosling got a Best Actor nod for what I thought was an OK but not outstanding performance as Ken.
Tyler Cowen links today to a (long) post about AI written by Alex Irpin, an AI researcher at Google. I recommend it for possibly vain reasons: As I read it, I was genuinely startled by how close it was to my own thinking. I swear, I almost felt like this guy could be my twin brother or something. My thinking processes and cognitive attitudes mimic his in an almost eerie way, and this made me trust his conclusions even after he left the realms I'm familiar with and entered areas way above my pay grade.
I suspect that many human-like learning behaviors could just be emergent properties of larger models. I also suspect that many things humans view as “intelligent” or “intentional” are neither. We just want to think we’re intelligent and intentional. We’re not, and the bar ML models need to cross is not as high as we think.
I believe human-level AI is approaching quickly because it relies on improvements in both software algorithms and hardware compute capacity. These are both advancing at exponential rates, and the combination of the two is advancing at a multi-exponential rate. Seven years ago I projected that this would produce full human-level AI by 2045, and that's more or less where Irpin is now.¹ But I've grown more optimistic, and today I'd put the timeline at around 2035, or maybe 2040. The amount of money and energy going into AI, along with spectacular increases in compute power, are staggering—far more than any of us were predicting even a few years ago. That just has to affect progress.
¹Though he also offers a 10% chance of human-level AI by 2028, which strikes even me as highly unlikely.
A new book reveals that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) “threw Trump under the bus” during Graham’s secret grand jury testimony in the Georgia election subversion case.
....“After fighting a four-month legal battle all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to block his grand jury subpoena — and losing — South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham turned on a dime ‘and threw Trump under the bus,’ according to a source familiar with his testimony. According to secret grand jury testimony in Fulton County confirmed by the authors, Graham testified that if you told Trump ‘That Martians came and stole the election, he’d probably believe you.’
“He also suggested to the grand jurors that Trump cheated at golf.”
That's cold. Isikoff and Klaidman also say that Atlanta DA Fani Willis had trouble finding a prosecutor willing to take on the vote fraud case against Trump and others:
Willis initially approached Roy Barnes, the former governor of Georgia and one of the state's premier lawyers, to serve as the senior counsel on the case. But he turned her down. She then tried Gabe Banks, a former federal prosecutor and highly respected Atlanta criminal defense lawyer. Banks also wasn't interested.
Neither Barnes nor Banks wanted to plunge into such an all-consuming case at the expense of their lucrative law practices, as laid out in the book. But the two were even more concerned about the inevitable threats that would come with such a politically incendiary case. Barnes declined to discuss his conversations with Willis, but nodded to those concerns in an interview: "Hypothetically speaking, do you want a bodyguard following you around for the rest of your life?" Banks declined comment.
It was only after those two turned her down that Willis appointed Nathan Wade, whom she is currently suspected of being romantically involved with.
Very respectable. The holiday season was strong and people are continuing to spend money. I continue to hold my breath over the prospect of a recession soon, but at the moment it sure looks like everything is going fine.
