Some observations of Kevin Drum (CalPundit):
[ I've put the ones I found most interesting at the top of the list. ]
Generally speaking, the public can tolerate immigrant flows equal to about a quarter percent of the population. Above that, a backlash becomes more and more likely.
[ Where do we stand today? ]
Social Security can be made fully solvent forever fairly easily.
[ If you discount the fact that we have to get sufficient political support to do it. ]
The annual federal deficit is starting to look genuinely dangerous. Like it or not, we're going to have to raise taxes sometime soon, and not just on the rich.
Domestic discretionary spending hasn't increased in more than 60 years. It is currently below its long-term average of 3.8% of GDP.
On average, Black students graduate from high school at a 9th grade level in both reading and math.
[ Yet our Supreme Court says there's no racism anymore. ]
The life expectancy of the affluent (top 10%) is about 89. The life expectancy of the poor (bottom 10%) is 77.
[ This is hard evidence things are out-of-whack. ]
Half a century ago, corporate profits were about 10% of the economy. Today they're 14%.
[ And, even that isn't enough for the super-rich. They're all crazy. ]
To the extent that environment affects children's development, it's mostly environment outside the home: playmates, teachers, shop clerks and so forth. Parents have a good deal less influence than they think. Needless to say, most people resist this conclusion strenuously, but consider: do immigrant kids grow up speaking with the accent of their parents or the accent of their friends? It's always the accent of their friends.
According to the Washington Post, a total of nine unarmed Black people were killed by police shootings nationwide in 2024 (through the end of October).
The United States is the greatest economic powerhouse in history and looks set to continue this for a while. It's genuinely mysterious why this is so.
[ It may have something to do with our long-term efforts to utilize the "30% environment" to improve our overall intelligence. ]
Tax cuts don't boost economic growth in any meaningful way.
[ But, tax increases can only go so far before they hurt growth. ]
Fear of losing status is a far greater motivator than the prospect of gaining status.
Of the top 50 software companies, 47 are American (22 in California). Roughly 21 of the top 25 AI companies are American.
Here's approximately how the federal budget breaks down (as of 2024):
Social Security = 22%,
Means-tested welfare = 17%,
Medicare = 13%,
Defense = 13%,
Domestic = 13%,
Interest = 13%,
Veterans = 5%.
Fox News is a cancer. It should be burned to the ground and the earth salted behind it.
[ Maybe when The Onion and Sandy Hook families bought Infowars, that was a down payment. ]
Interesting:
93% of all abortions are done in the first trimester. 99% happen in the first 20 weeks.
[ Despite the numbers being based on real events, I'll bet people would fight over this. ]
Over the past half century, Democrats have been remarkably successful at building a durable safety net for the poor. We spend more than a trillion dollars per year on social welfare, and it raises the average income of the poor from about $25,000 to $50,000.
Roughly speaking, intelligence is 70% genes and 30% environment.
The real dietary villain of the modern era is refined sugar.
[ Refined grains enable our bodies to absorb carbohydrates more easily too. ]
In 2023, median family income in the US was $101,000. In 1980, adjusted for inflation, it was $70,000. In 1953 it was $40,000.
Among the non-affluent, college tuition hasn't risen over the past 30 years.
[ Yet, the need for an intelligent public requires that we continue to improve our educational system(s). ]
Crime didn't skyrocket in the '70s and '80s because of drugs or poverty or family breakdown. It skyrocketed because of an increase in lead poisoning that had begun decades earlier.
[ This means we can expect it to continue down to some flat-line level where it will stay. ]
Most people seem to have no idea what the racial makeup of America is. For the record, it's
58% white
20% Latino
14% Black
6% Asian
Millennials are doing fine.
It may turn out that social media is bad for teens, but so far the evidence is fairly thin.
Always adjust for inflation. There are rare exceptions, but you're not likely to ever run into them.
Always disaggregate student test data by race. If you don't, you'll frequently get badly misleading data due to demographic shifts. Always disaggregate poverty data by age. If you don't, you'll be largely just capturing the reduction in elderly poverty thanks to Social Security and Medicare.
There is no retirement crisis.
The 2021-22 inflation surge was caused by the COVID pandemic and the bipartisan $2.2 trillion CARES Act. That's it. Nothing else had more than a minor effect.
Despite lots of publicity saying so, maternal mortality has probably not increased. It turns out this was just a statistical artifact.
During a pandemic, social distancing is good, but three feet is probably enough. N95 masks are beneficial, but other masks aren't.
The internet makes smart people smarter and dumb people dumber. AI will make smart people even smarter but will probably make dumb people a little smarter too.
On a huge range of measures—economic, social, cultural, technological, and recreational—life in America is stupendously good. We should all feel a lot better about things than we do. One of the reasons we don't is that both liberals and conservatives have a vested interest in claiming that the country is on the precipice of imminent collapse due to moral decay.
Vaccines do not cause autism.
A lot of famous studies have turned out to be wrong, but most people never hear about it. The Stanford prison experiment showing that even fake guards became abusive toward fake prisoners? Probably exaggerated. The marshmallow test showing that kids who delayed gratification had better life outcomes? Nah. Saturated fats are bad for you? Mostly a misinterpretation of the Framingham Heart Study.
Orchestras that audition players behind curtains are more likely to hire women? Not really.
Strange but true: COVID vaccines reduce death rates from non-COVID causes.
Possibly this is because the vaccines prevent Long COVID.
It's true that correlation doesn't automatically imply causation, but it's a helluva strong clue. The proper response to a well done correlation study isn't knee-jerk skepticism, it's "That's interesting! We should to more studies to confirm it."
Medical inflation is largely under control. Since 2000 it's been only about one point higher than overall inflation, and over the past three years it's been considerably lower.
There's been no particular increase in airplane mechanical malfunctions lately.
Probably every sentence being served for every crime in the US should be cut in half. Our sentencing policies are ludicrously punitive and accomplish little.
Human beings are fundamentally kind of shitty. But that's what civilization is for: it's a compact among ourselves to keep the worst of our excesses under control as long as everyone else has to as well. It's a bit of a miracle that this mutual surveillance agreement works, but it does, after a fashion.
It's unlikely we will be willing to make the carbon cuts necessary to rein in climate change. Geoengineering is probably in our future.
AI is going to take your job away, no matter what your job is. Not today and probably not tomorrow, but it's not too many decades away.
One out of seven people have no interior monologue.
[ This is just weird. How can a person not talk to themselves? ]
Half of all people have two-digit IQs.
[ Ha ha. Why did he include this? He's a statistics geek, but ... ]
Finally, here is one from his next blog post which ought to be on the list:
"Marijuana is still fairly widespread, but every other drug is down to practically nothing since 2000. Cocaine, heroin, meth, ecstasy, inhalants, sedatives—you name it and it's dropped off the map. Alcohol use is down by half and cigarette smoking is all but extinct (though vaping has replaced some of it)."
And a response from one of his readers, "Yup. The kids these days are addicted to their phones. Drugs can't compete." (shapeofsociety wrote).
