Kevin Drum

CBS News runs the following headline today:

Americans need an extra $11,400 today just to afford the basics

This is hardly news. Every month Republicans release a report telling us how much inflation is costing the average family—without, of course, bothering to tell us how much the average family's income has gone up.

And sneaky devils that they are, they start their analysis in January 2021. That way, in case you decide to look at average wages on your own, you'll start right in the middle of the pandemic wage decline without showing the previous pandemic wage increase:

Long story short, if you start in January 2020 to get a fair comparison, inflation has cost you a little over $12,000. At the same time, average household income has gone up a little over $13,000.

Why would CBS News even bother running this? It's just a rewrite of some routine Republican propaganda and the headline is wildly misleading. To make it even worse, they wait six paragraphs to tell you that wages are up—and they do it in boring percentages instead of dramatic thousands of dollars. They might as well just put themselves on the RNC payroll and be done with it.

During negotiations over the debt ceiling, Republicans agreed to a topline budget number for the upcoming fiscal year of $1.59 trillion. Within a few weeks, however, the House Freedom Caucus was back to demanding a lower budget number with a peculiar level of precision: $1.471 trillion. In the end, it was this number that prevented the House from agreeing to a budget. This led to Kevin McCarthy making a deal with Democrats to pass a continuing resolution to keep the government running, and that in turn led to McCarthy's ouster.

That was two months ago and the House still can't agree on a budget. So guess what? The Freedom Caucus is finally recognizing reality:

Since earlier this summer, conservatives have demanded government spending cuts below the budget levels established by the $1.59 trillion debt ceiling deal reached earlier this year.... But on Wednesday, some of those same conservatives began more actively telegraphing a concession of sorts: They’d reluctantly entertain the same $1.59 trillion topline they once spurned.

So in the end it was all for nothing. They deposed a Speaker, spent weeks electing a new one, still couldn't pass a budget, and have now finally reluctantly agreed to pretty much the same budget number as everyone else.

And why not? Take a look at discretionary spending over the past two decades:

Compared to 20 years ago, defense spending is down 3.5% and non-defense spending is down 20.3%. That sounds great for conservatives. So what are they so unhappy about?

Two views of the Château Gaillard, overlooking the Seine in Les Andelys. The top view was taken on our way out from Paris; the bottom view was taken on the trip back.

Joe Biden is resorting to some old school politics today. If members of Congress won't approve aid to Ukraine on the merits, maybe they'll do it just to selfishly bring home dollars to their districts:

This is all great, but just remember who your friends are, Joe. California only gets $18 per person while Texas gets $31, Florida gets $44, Mississippi gets $134, Alabama gets $184, and Missouri gets $208? Come on. But at least we're better off than Illinois, which didn't even crack ten cents.

Today's edition of little-known facts features the son of Mao Zedong:

Mao Anying, a Chinese military officer, was killed by US bombers on 25 November 1950 during the Korean war. A persistent but frequently denied rumour says he was trying to cook egg fried rice instead of taking shelter, and the smoke from the fire exposed his position to enemy forces.

How about that? Anyway, a celebrity chef posted a video about how to make egg fried rice near the anniversary of Mao's death and now everyone is pissed at him. “As a chef, I will never make fried rice again,” Wang said in his apology on Monday after taking down the video.

Graphyte is a company that buys biomass byproducts and compresses them into bricks which are then buried. This prevents the carbon in the biomass from being released into the atmosphere. On its website it says:

Graphyte is focused on working with partners responsibly to ensure our solution is not used as a replacement for direct emissions reduction strategies.

Today Graphyte signed its first commercial contract. It's with American Airlines, which plans to buy carbon credits from Graphyte instead of reducing emissions. Ahem.

But this isn't what drew my attention initially. To make its bricks Graphyte collects biomass leftovers like forestry waste, crop residue, and garbage. But isn't that stuff already being used by companies that convert it into renewable fuel? And how much of it is around, anyway?

According to the Department of Energy, the answers are (1) yes and (2) about 250 million tons per year. At one-third of a ton of capturable CO₂ per ton of biomass waste, this represents roughly 1.4% of the six billion tons of CO₂ the US currently emits each year.

The Energy Department also estimates that biomass waste could increase to about 800 million tons by 2040. If every gram of this were used for carbon sequestration it would still amount to only about 4% of all US carbon emissions.

So color me skeptical on the scalability front. Obviously not every gram of biomass produced is available for Graphyte's use. At a guess, the plausible amount available in the US would amount to maybe 0.1% of carbon emissions today and 0.5% by 2040. Every little bit counts, but this just isn't much.

POSTSCRIPT: Of course, Graphyte can be a global business. At a rough guess, its max potential for carbon capture worldwide is probably on the order of 1% of CO₂ emissions today and 5% in 2040.

According to estimates from CMS, the average premium for an Obamacare health policy has dropped about 10% since 2020 after adjusting for inflation. The average net cost after subsidy is down about 50%.

Here are figures for the past five years. The top chart shows the average for all enrollees. The bottom chart shows the average for a family of four earning $100,000. In both cases, the premium is for the lowest-cost plan.

For a family of four with income under $50,000, a low-cost silver plan is basically free.

It's worth noting that although this is good news, we still have a ways to go on the health care front. Deductibles and copays under Obamacare remain high, especially for low-cost health plans, so the average family is still going to pay a fair amount if they have any significant health problems.

Media Matters points out today that Donald Trump's "vermin" comment of a few days ago got way less press attention than Hillary Clinton's "basket of deplorables" remark during the 2016 campaign:

That's a pretty dramatic difference, though in fairness the election is still a year away. Hillary Clinton made her comment two months before Election Day.

But you know what? It doesn't matter. I'm sure you all recall a far worse Trump disaster during the 2016 campaign: the release of his comment about sexually assaulting women just because he could. This was the great "grab 'em by the pussy" remark, and it came just a month before the election. It even had audio! It got tons of coverage and......

......had no apparent effect on the election at all:

Clinton's "deplorables" remark might have caused her to lose a point in the polling, but even if it did she made it up within a few days.

Trump's remark, likewise, might have cost him a point—which he made up within a week or so.

It just doesn't matter what they say. People don't care. Far more important in the 2016 campaign was the New York Times' coverage of the Comey FBI letter about Hillary's emails. Almost immediately her lead against Trump was cut by four points and she never fully recovered.

This is our local Great Blue Heron. He just showed up one day at a nearby park and stood around quietly. He didn't fly off when I got close or when pedestrians walked by. He just calmly took it all in. Very unusual.

Today the Wall Street Journal asks, "Why Is Everyone So Unhappy at Work Right Now?"

An excellent question! But only if people are, in fact, really unhappy at work right now. But they aren't:

This is not "data" from some outfit like Qualtrics or BambooHR, it's from the GSS, which has been asking exactly the same question for 50 years. All it shows is a small decrease in job satisfaction at the peak of the pandemic which rebounded by the next year.

Amusingly, the article links to another Journal article from May—that's six months ago—headlined "Workers Are Happier Than They’ve Been in Decades." That's based on survey data from the Conference Board, which has also been in the survey biz for many years.

Anyway, come on folks. I know the meme pipeline needs to be refilled constantly with hot takes, but can't you at least take a quick look at reliable, long-term data from Gallup, GSS, or the Conference Board before you write the latest idiot headline about some fake trend in the workplace?