However, the difference in UK/USA life expectancy isn't what really strikes me about this chart. Rather, it's the fact that both countries show almost identical curves based on income. In Britain, the richest live 11 years longer than the poorest; in the US it's 14 years. The difference within each country dwarfs the difference between them.
The other thing that's always struck me about this chart is the spike at the very richest level. It's easy to understand why the rich might live longer than the poor, but why does someone in the top 1% live three years longer than someone in the top 5%? Both are likely to have excellent health coverage, so it's probably not that. That means it's likely to be some kind of systemic lifestyle difference. But what?
China released more bad economic news on Tuesday, but it was the number that wasn’t included in the official data dump that stood out: Beijing said it would stop publishing figures for youth unemployment, weeks after it hit a record high of 21.3 percent in June.
....China has been publishing less economic data since Xi Jinping rose to power. In recent months, authorities have reportedly told Chinese economists to avoid discussing negative trends. Officials have also instructed lawyers working on I.P.O.s to soften their wording on the country’s risks.
Is China just in the midst of a temporary downturn? I suppose that's the way to bet, but I'm not so sure. I think it's more likely to be a harbinger of a permanent slowdown in China's economy, due partly to fundamentals like population growth and partly to Xi Jinping's steady abandonment of free-market policies.
I've often said that if you believe in free-market capitalism as a growth engine, then you should believe in free-market capitalism as a growth engine. I do, with obvious caveats, and this means I don't believe in China. Their housing bubble economy of the moment will eventually recover, just as ours did after the Great Recession, but their long-term growth is going to be weak if they steadily move further away from free-market principles and instead clamp down on private business while tying themselves ever more tightly to the anchor of state-owned enterprises weighing them down.
Needless to say, China will remain a major economic force during all this. And if Xi decides to roll the dice and invade Taiwan while he's still alive to see it, it will be a disaster for the world economy no matter who wins. At a 10,000 foot level, however, the future does not belong to China, no matter how many people say it.
Chief Executive Ted Decker said on a call with analysts Tuesday that commodity inflation in the company’s second quarter declined year over year and is down meaningfully from peak levels. Inflation in product and transportation costs is coming down, and new requests from suppliers for price increases are “negligible” at this point, he said.
....“We’re encouraged that the cycle of inflation is essentially behind us,” he said.
"Negligible." In other words, close to zero. This is promising real-world confirmation that inflation in goods really is in the rear-view mirror.
This is a view from Highway 243 on the way up the mountain toward Idyllwild. It wasn't snowing on the day I was there, but it had snowed a day or two before and the clouds were still a little bleak.
I've been more relaxed than most people about Elon Musk's changes to Twitter, but even I admit that today's news is pretty ominous. Apparently Musk has inserted a 5-second delay when you click on links to sites that he dislikes for one reason or another:
The delayed websites included X’s online rivals Facebook, Instagram, Bluesky and Substack, as well as the Reuters wire service and the Times. All of them have previously been singled out by Musk for ridicule or attack.
....Reuters and the Times previously have been attacked by Musk for reporting on his businesses. Reuters recently published an investigation that found that another Musk company, Tesla, had “suppressed” drivers’ complaints about overly optimistic range predictions for the company’s electric cars.
Musk has berated the Times as “propaganda” and the “Twitter equivalent of diarrhea.” In April, he removed the “verified” badge from the news outlet’s now 55-million-follower account, making it harder for viewers to distinguish it from fake accounts. He also criticized the paper this month related to its coverage of South African politics.
The delay itself is bad enough, but the bigger issue is obviously the fact that Musk routinely retaliates against anyone who annoys him—even if it degrades his own website. It's hard to say which is worse about this: The increasing public childishness of Musk's behavior itself or the fact that his childishness is ruining a once-great resource.
Having had custody of trilateral relations in GW Bush's second term, I find the meeting at Camp David mind blowing. We could barely get South Korean and Japanese leaders to meet with us in the same room.
As they say, an imminent execution concentrates the mind wonderfully. Fear of China is now more important than leftover WWII grievances, just as fear of communism united a fractious Europe and the US during the Cold War.
It's conventional wisdom these days to say that democracy is waning and authoritarianism is ascendant. The evidence for this is paper thin, based on little more than the turning of normal political cycles and a few larger-than-life assholes on the world stage. But these things are transitory. Wait a few years and they turn again. Suddenly Brazil is leftist again, the Tories are facing annihilation in Britain, and Donald Trump is dealing with four separate felony trials.
More important by far are the fortunes of the world's two most powerful anti-democratic regimes, Russia and China. Both are in bad shape. Vladimir Putin has united his neighbors in almost unanimous hatred of him. The ruble has crashed and sanctions are squeezing his economy. Xi Jinping is in little better shape. His bellicose rhetoric has increasingly turned his neighbors against him and the Chinese economy is in turmoil as property values collapse and foreign investment dries up.
Despite everything, Western democracies are in pretty good shape while the world's two biggest autocracies are flailing. This is the real shape of the world. By comparison, momentary autocratic impulses in places like Hungary and Italy, while deserving of resistance, are fundamentally small beer. Eyes on the prize, people.
The lawyer who represented Hunter Biden in plea negotiations to end a five-year Justice Department investigation into tax and gun offenses stepped down early Tuesday, saying that he intends to testify as a witness on behalf of the president’s son.
....This week, Abbe Lowell, a veteran lawyer in Washington who has represented a wide range of clients, including Jared Kushner, filed court documents indicating he now represented Mr. Biden in the case.
How often does this happen? I can't remember a case like it. Lawyers step down all the time for various reasons, but stepping down so you can testify for your client? That's pretty unusual.
We don't yet know the details, but apparently the shoe has finally dropped in the Georgia "find 11,780 votes" case. A grand jury has returned ten indictments against Donald Trump, but we won't know exactly what the charges are for another hour or two.
In any case, Trump has now been impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, indicted four times on felony conspiracy and obstruction charges, and forced to pay tens of millions of dollars in civil actions for fraud and sexual assault. That's quite a record.
TWO HOURS LATER: We have details. The grand jury indicted 19 people on 41 separate counts, including RICO conspiracy charges for some of them. Among the indicted are:
Donald Trump, disgraced former US president
Rudy Giuliani, demented former "America's Mayor"
John Eastman, crackpot lawyer
Mark Meadows, panicky former White House chief of staff
Sidney Powell, another crackpot lawyer
Kenneth Chesebro, unscrupulopus lawyer who conceived the whole fake electors scheme
Plus there are 13 others charged on various counts of mopery and dopery.
However, the difference in UK/USA life expectancy isn't what really strikes me about this chart. Rather, it's the fact that both countries show almost identical curves based on income. In Britain, the richest live 11 years longer than the poorest; in the US it's 14 years. The difference within each country dwarfs the difference between them.
