Kevin Drum 🕸

President Biden plans to release a million barrels of oil daily from the Strategic Oil Reserve in order to bring down the price of crude oil and, eventually, gasoline. Regardless of whether this is a good use of the SPR, the first question to ask is whether it's even likely to work. Here's the price ...continue reading "Can the Strategic Oil Reserve lower gasoline prices?"

These are cypress trees growing in the Atchafalaya swamp in Louisiana. The swamp used to be covered in cypress trees, but they were prized for their wood and were mostly fully logged by the end of the 19th century. The ones you see here are relatively new, planted long after the old growth trees were ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"

James Medlock happened to post this chart today, so I might as well post it too. It shows what happens when the increased Obamacare subsidies go away and we return to the original subsidy structure: In its original form, Obamacare subsidies were available only for people with incomes under 400% of the poverty level. For ...continue reading "Chart of the day: What happens when the improved Obamacare subsidies go away"

Ezra Klein's podcast with Larry Summers wasn't just about inflation. Ezra also asked Summers to name three books that had influenced him: Third, a book that will come out in the next several months, Brad DeLong’s “Slouching Towards Utopia,” which is, I think, a really remarkable and powerful placing of all of economic history in ...continue reading "Three centuries: Science, economics, AI, and the creation of a new world"

This is an African spoonbill in a picture taken at the San Diego Zoo. As I recall, the spoonbill was not very cooperative but it eventually showed its entire self.

In an interview with Ezra Klein, economist Larry Summers says there are two things that he thinks are likely to produce a long-term inflation crisis. The first is that demand is too high. The second is that if wages go up too much (hooray!) they will eventually produce even higher inflation and before long the ...continue reading "Where is our inflation crisis supposed to come from?"

The Washington Post reports that Donald Trump's phone log on January 6, 2021, goes suddenly silent for 7 hours and 37 minutes starting when Trump addressed the rally to overturn the vote and continuing through the attack on the Capitol. Shortly after the rioters were finally cleared, the phone logs once again list calls to ...continue reading "Donald Trump has a 457-minute gap on January 6"

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, here's the inflation rate for new cars after it's been adjusted for the overall rate of inflation: This probably looks very wrong. A Toyota Corolla cost about $5,000 back in 1980 and costs about $20,000 today. That's an increase greater than the overall rate of inflation, and it's ...continue reading "How high is medical inflation?"

This is Interstate 15 where it crosses California Highway 76. The view is looking south. San Diego is shrouded in clouds at the southern end of I15; Oceanside is off the frame at the western end of Highway 76; and Camp Pendleton is off the frame to the lower right.

It seems like the whole Will Smith-Chris Rock thing needs some added juice to keep it going. But what? They're both Black, so there's no racial angle. They're both cis men, so there's no gender or sexual orientation angle. They're both the same age. They were both raised sort of vaguely working class. They both ...continue reading "Will Smith assaulted a man with a learning disorder"

Exciting news, genealogy nerds! Census records are kept private for 72 years, which means the 1950 census records will be available soon. On Friday, to be exact. What's even more exciting is that the 1950 records have already been digitized and will be fully searchable immediately. So if you want to find out where your ...continue reading "1950 census will be online this Friday"

Ultraviolet light kills pathogens such as COVID-19 but is also a danger to human beings. But what if there was a version of UV light that killed pathogens without affecting people? It turns out there is. Krypton chloride (KrCl) excimer lamps radiate light at a frequency of 222 nm, also known as Far-UVC, which is ...continue reading "Study says krypton excimer lamps safely kill off COVID-19 (probably)"

For the record, I have no problem with President Biden's ad-libbed comment about Putin yesterday. Blunt talk about autocrats is sometimes welcome, and wartime seems like an especially auspicious occasion for it. What's more, I very much doubt that it will cause Putin to blow his top or anything like that. Quite the opposite: the ...continue reading "Nine words: “For God’s sake, this man cannot remain in power”"

From Chris Wallace, longtime Fox News host, on why he finally left the network: I’m fine with opinion: conservative opinion, liberal opinion. But when people start to question the truth — Who won the 2020 election? Was Jan. 6 an insurrection? — I found that unsustainable. ....Some people might have drawn the line earlier, or ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Life at Fox News became “unsustainable”"

The crypto community brags that there are thousands of cryptocurrencies these days. But doesn't that, almost by definition, demolish the idea that cryptocurrencies have real value? When Bitcoin was unique, that was one thing. But over the past few years it's became clear that nearly any random person can create a cryptocurrency. All it take ...continue reading "Why can anyone create a new cryptocurrency?"

Marissa Evans writes about her 70-year-old father's death in January from COVID-19: Since my father’s death, I have stared at the January 2022 calendar page attempting to trace his COVID-19 exposure and when he started coughing. I’ve tried reconstructing timelines and symptoms with dates, texts and calls to understand why my father died. But I ...continue reading "The Black death rate from COVID-19 doesn’t entirely make sense"

Based on some skeptical feedback to my post about how our global supply chains actually worked pretty well through the pandemic, I began wondering if the real issue here revolves around our definitions of "global supply chain" and "failed." For example: My view of "global supply chain" is that it specifically refers to the complex ...continue reading "OK, how good are our global supply chains, really? Let’s see the receipts."

With cases of Omicron and now BA.2 rising in Europe, it occurred to me that this might be a good time check in again on Sweden. Here it is: Back in the middle of last year, Sweden was officially a disaster area. Their light touch on COVID regulation had backfired, producing higher case counts than ...continue reading "Another update on the Swedish model for COVID response"

Here's another picture of Hilbert and Charlie taken in the wee hours using the Night Sight feature of my Pixel 6 Pro. This one really shows off the huge amount of image processing that the phone must be doing: the edges are so sharply defined that the cats almost look like they're floating a bit. ...continue reading "Friday Cat Blogging – 25 March 2022"

The latest from Ukraine: Not long after Mr. Biden arrived in Poland, the Russian military signaled that it might be reducing its war aims. After a month of a grinding war in which Russian forces have been met by unexpectedly fierce Ukrainian resistance and have failed to capture major cities across the country, Maj. Gen. ...continue reading "Russian general says Russia will focus on Donbas"