Politico has a big piece today about the growth of tax-free retirement accounts—things like 401(k)s and Roth IRAs. The gist of it is that (a) these accounts cost the government just as much as if they were funded directly, and (b) the benefits go largely to the affluent: There's been a surge of expansion since ...continue reading "How the retirement industry is wrecking retirement"
YouGov asks about abortion more often than once a year, which makes it a handy gauge of abortion opinion over the past couple of years since Dobbs. Here it is: It would be nice if they had data before May 2022, but they don't. Still, it's better than most. As it happens, by far the ...continue reading "Raw data: What America thinks about abortion"
Here is Hilbert preparing for the great eclipse. He was disappointed that we couldn't see totality, but after going inside for a nap he got over it pretty quickly.
Donald Trump wanted Congress to kill renewal of the FISA surveillance program: Trump had urged members to “KILL FISA” in a social-media post Wednesday, and holdout Republicans then blocked the bill from proceeding, forcing leaders to scramble to rework the proposal. ....While dozens of mostly minor changes geared at safeguarding privacy were included, an amendment ...continue reading "FISA renewal passes House—unfortunately"
Those of you who are faithful readers already know this, but today Brookings released a report confirming that college costs haven't really gone up that much. They include a handy graphing tool that shows the actual cost of college at various income levels: In the scenario I chose to illustrate this, the actual cost of ...continue reading "Brookings confirms it: The cost of college has barely changed in the past 30 years"
This is—I shit you not—next week's agenda for Republicans on the House Rules Committee: Meh. Nothing more important to do, I guess. But I'm truly disappointed at the lack of cool acronyms. Only freshman congressman Nick Langworthy could be bothered, making HR 7700 into the SUDS Act. Nice one, congressman!
How much humanitarian aid is getting into Gaza? There are two sources for this: Israel itself (via COGAT) and the UN (via OCHA). Here's what they report recently: Up through April 6 both sides mostly agree. Israel reports an average of 190 trucks per day while the UN reports an average of 170. But after ...continue reading "Aid to Gaza is up either 100% or 4%"
You remember Ippei Mizuhara, the interpreter for baseball superstar Shohei Ohtani? He supposedly stole $4 million from Ohtani to pay off gambling debts, but I haven't really been paying attention to this since the story first broke. New York gets me up to speed: According to U.S. Attorney Martin Estrada, Mizuhara got ahold of Ohtani’s ...continue reading "A quick update on Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter"
This is from the New York Times today: Yes, seriously. To dig into "complex" views about the election, the Times asked voters for one word. God only knows what they'd call it if they asked for ten words.
Many years ago—pre-blogging—I wrote this about OJ Simpson: Yes, OJ was guilty and got off. So have lots of white guys. But that's missing the point. Why did the jurors unanimously believe it quite plausible that the LAPD planted evidence and lied on the stand? That's pretty much still my basic take.
No one likes a high inflation report, but the panic over yesterday's number is a little out of hand. Here is CPI inflation since the late '70s: There's a huge amount of noise in the monthly CPI numbers. What's more, we got used to ultra-low inflation in the decade following the financial crisis. Average CPI ...continue reading "There’s no need to panic over inflation"
The 99 Cents Only chain is closing up shop. LA Times columnist Gustavo Arellano headed out to talk to a few customers about it: “I blame [Gavin] Newsom,” said Rick Juarez, 53, referencing the California governor as he entered the store to stock up on batteries. He had shopped at this location for “at least” ...continue reading "Blame Gavin Newsom!"
Donald Trump says he's in favor of states deciding abortion policy for themselves. Unless, that is, they're getting a lot of damaging attention for it: Former President Donald Trump said Wednesday that Arizona went too far after the state’s high court issued a ruling outlawing abortion.... “Arizona is definitely going to change, everybody wants that ...continue reading "Trump opposes Arizona’s abortion ban. So what about Texas?"
As time goes by, I've gotten less and less interested in studies showing how good modern AI is. Many of them are fascinating, but I want to see real-world examples. Today, the New York Times says Wall Street is about to start replacing junior financial analysts in enormous numbers: The jobs most immediately at risk ...continue reading "First AI came for the grunts…."
The Cass Review, a comprehensive study of adolescent gender care in the UK headed by Dr. Hilary Cass, a consulting pediatrician, was released today. I lack the expertise to evaluate it critically, but here are the points that jumped out at me: There's no single approach that's right for everyone. Transitioning is right for some ...continue reading "UK review says we know almost nothing about gender care for teens"
This is an orangutan at the LA Zoo. Doesn't he look old and wise? I mean, we've all seen the movies. We know that orangutans are the smartest of the apes, right? This was a hard picture to take because the orangutans were behind glass that hadn't been cleaned for at least a few months. ...continue reading "Lunchtime Photo"
Atrios asks: Now that elite opinion has coalesced around the idea that Israel has (caveat caveat caveat caveat) gone a bit too far, I really would like someone to explain what changed between January (let alone October) and April? I'm just a simple city blogger and my opinion was clear from the beginning: whatever the ...continue reading "Why are so many people only now turning against the Gaza war?"
From Gen. Christopher Cavoli, commenting on the dire situation in Ukraine: The side that can’t shoot back loses. It's disgraceful that we've given up on Ukraine, and it's beyond disgraceful that this is largely because the Republican Party is following the lead of Donald Trump, who has a personal beef with Ukraine because they refused ...continue reading "Quote of the day: Republicans and Ukraine"
A few days ago Damon Linker wrote a piece for the New York Times claiming that America is broken, and this is why people are so unhappy right now. Linker makes his case by cherry picking a laundry list of bad things that have happened recently, and he's certainly right about some of them. Iraq ...continue reading "For the millionth time: People are happy and things are going OK"
stLouIST