Kevin Drum 🕸

Last year I posted a snippet of the Colosseum in Rome that was taken about an hour before dawn. The combination of yellow lighting and dark blue sky was both gorgeous and dramatic. This picture was taken at the same time, but it's a straightforward shot of the entire structure. It looks surprisingly small! I ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

The Wall Street Journal has good news for America's CEOs! Pay increases for U.S. chief executives have gained steam, putting compensation on pace to set a record amid a tight labor market that is also driving pay higher for many of their workers. Median pay rose to $14.2 million last year for the leaders of ...continue reading "Here’s how America’s CEOs did last year"

From Brian Stelter: In a forthcoming book, a pair of New York Times reporters and CNN political analysts report that President Joe Biden "assessed" Fox News "as one of the most destructive forces in the United States." The reporters, Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, say that Biden was even more critical of Fox Corp patriarch ...continue reading "Rupert Murdoch is “the most dangerous man in the world”"

A few days ago I looked at historical releases of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and concluded that they didn't have much effect on crude oil prices. So how's the latest announcement doing so far? Everyone seems to have forgotten that President Biden first opened the SPR on March 1 after he and other ...continue reading "How’s the latest release of oil from the SPR doing so far?"

Yesterday the yield curve inverted: interest rates on 10-year Treasuries were lower than rates on 2-year Treasuries. This upends the normal order of the universe, in which you have to offer higher rates to investors to get them to buy long-term bonds. This has long been taken as a sign that we're in an economic ...continue reading "Does an inverted yield curve mean a recession is near?"

In an aside to a longer post, Charlie Stross says: It should be noted that Donbass has the second largest gas reserves in Europe: this is economically as much an oil/gas war as was the Iraq war before it. I did not know that! However, although this is technically true, there are some caveats. First, ...continue reading "Is the Ukraine war all about natural gas?"

I've become a little obsessed with our inflation crisis, and yesterday evening I ran into a tweet about our old friend NGDP. This is nominal GDP—i.e., not adjusted for inflation—and there's a small cadre of economists who believe that this, not interest rates, is what the Fed should target. A common proposal is to target ...continue reading "Yet another look at inflation: NGDP level targeting"

Ladies and gentlemen, behold the modern conservative movement: Ingraham: When Republicans get back into power, Apple and Disney have to understand one thing: Everything will be on the table, your copyright/trademark protection, your special status in certain states, and even your corporate structure itself… pic.twitter.com/7kKhPH07Rs — Acyn (@Acyn) April 2, 2022 This is the kind ...continue reading "Ingraham: Disney will be crushed for opposing us"

A month ago I posted a chart of European inflation vs. US inflation. The rough takeaway was that over the past year our inflation rate has been about two points higher than Europe's. Today we got the latest estimate of EU inflation, which spiked upward to 7.5% in March: There are at least four possibilities ...continue reading "European inflation spiked up a huge amount in March"

This is Charlie playing with his adored little string thingie. Shortly after this picture was taken, he picked it up in his mouth and deposited it in his water dish. We call this "learning to swim." Marian fished it out, and a couple of minutes later Charlie deposited it yet again in the water dish. ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 1 April 2022"

Adjusted for inflation, average wages have been declining for the past year. But does this really mean lower costs for employers? Maybe health insurance costs more. Maybe office rents have gone up. Let's check: The ECI is a measure of the total cost of employment, and it's been going down since the start of the ...continue reading "Raw data: Employers are paying workers less and less"

As I mentioned a few days ago, the 1950 census is now online. You can search it here. Here is my father in 1950: As usual, click the image to embiggen. For some reason, no employment is listed for my grandfather, even though he was busily engaged as VP of sales at the Smith & ...continue reading "The 1950 census is now online. Here’s my family."

An Amazon warehouse on Staten Island has voted to unionize: 2654 yes, 2131 no. It's over.#Amazonlabor — David Dayen (@ddayen) April 1, 2022 This is great news for the Amazon Labor Union, a new union founded only last year. An Amazon warehouse in Alabama, organized by the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, lost its ...continue reading "Workers finally win vote to unionize Amazon"

The American economy gained 431,000 jobs last month. We need 90,000 new jobs just to keep up with population growth, which means that net job growth clocked in at 341,000 jobs. The headline unemployment rate fell yet again to 3.6%. This is yet another strong jobs report. However, wage growth was terrible: adjusted for inflation, ...continue reading "Chart of the day: Net new jobs in March"

The CDC released its biannual survey of teen suicide today, and the results are mixed. Here's a look at actual suicide attempts: Overall, suicide attempts were flat compared to 2019, which is heartening considering all the stresses of dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic. I would have expected to see a noticeable increase. On the other ...continue reading "Raw data: Teen suicide during the pandemic"

Here's more good news on the inflation front: Consumer spending was down slightly in February, which keeps it right on the pre-pandemic trendline. It's yet another indication that consumer demand isn't spiraling ever upward. On the contrary, it remains well anchored.

Mortgage interest rates are up again this week: When you account for both home prices and interest rates, monthly payments are up nearly 30% over the past half year. Unsurprisingly, sales of both new and existing homes have dropped over the past few months and average sales prices have been flat. I expect this trend ...continue reading "Mortgage interest rates are up again"

Midday on Balboa Island, presented without comment.

For the past few weeks the most extreme members of the anti-gay right have been busily trying to resurrect panic over the idea that gay people try to "groom" kids into becoming gay. This is an ancient fear that was popular in the '70s and '80s but had mostly subsided since then. So how is ...continue reading "The whole disgusting “gay grooming” panic is already fading away"

Normally, the inflation rate of goods and services are roughly similar. But no longer: The inflation rate of durable goods has skyrocketed, and instead of being a few points below the inflation rate of services it's now 14 points above the inflation rate of services. One way to think about this is that the inflation ...continue reading "Raw data: Inflation rate of goods and services"