Kevin Drum

THE USUAL CYCLE….The New York Times reports that the volume of short-term commercial loans has dropped 3% this year, the largest annual decline since 2001: Banks struggling to recover from multibillion-dollar losses on real estate are curtailing loans to American businesses, depriving even healthy companies of money for expansion and hiring. ….Drew Greenblatt, president of […]

HIGHWAY LINGUISTICS….PART 3….I know you’ve all been transfixed by this weekend’s discussion of Southern California’s habit of prepending “the” to freeway numbers, haven’t you? So here it is: one final post with the long-awaited semi-official explanation for this phenomenon. It’s official because it appears in an academic journal, but only semi because I remain a […]

THE DAY AFTER….I’ve never been a big John McCain fan. Even in the 2001-2004 era, when he was flirting with the left and opposing the most neanderthal elements in his own party, I didn’t really warm to him. To me, he mostly seemed like a standard issue conservative who had discovered a good schtick during […]

HIGHWAY LINGUISTICS….PART 2….Just a quick note on the Southern Californian habit of prepending “the” to highway names. We still don’t know where this habit originated, but it turns out there’s one other area of the continent where this is common: the Toronto/Buffalo region. Coincidence? Causation? In which direction? I haven’t a clue. But if I’d […]

THE SCOURGE OF PADDED NONFICTION….The New York Times has yet another installment today in the long running soap opera about the mental decline of our internet-addicted youth. Example: “As teenagers’ scores on standardized reading tests have declined or stagnated, some argue that the hours spent prowling the Internet are the enemy of reading — diminishing […]

HIGHWAY LINGUISTICS….Last month, when he was in town, I had dinner with Matt Yglesias, and when we were about done we got to talking about directions back to his hotel (this was a few minutes before I got lost taking him there). He noted that I, like other Californians, refer to freeways using the definite […]

TOOTSIE ROLLS….In the New York Times today, Charles Blow describes the caricatures of left and right we’ll soon be treated to in the upcoming presidential campaign: The left will be reduced to fist-bumping blacks and intellectual elites with gun aversions and gay agendas. An amoral, tail-tucking lot that coddles criminals, raises taxes and has gone […]

THE RETURN OF JOHN BOLTON….Great. Now that lunatic Jack D. Ripper wannabe John Bolton has sworn off appearances in the New York Times, he shows up on my doorstep instead. Thanks a lot, Nick. Shorter Bolton: If Barack Obama gave a speech praising mothers as the glue that holds America together, I’d write a turgid […]

OIL BUBBLE?….Is the recent rise in oil prices a speculative bubble? Via Mark Thoma, economist Jim Hamilton tackles that question here. Shorter Hamilton: if you think it’s a bubble, what makes you so sure you know what the price should really be? But read the whole thing for a bit more detail. UPDATE: Alternate theory: […]

FRIDAY CATBLOGGING….I am so glad this week is over. It felt like the Bataan Death March of political campaign imbecility. Schmidt’s Sausage Haus! Barack Obama better watch out that he doesn’t get too popular! “Surge” means whatever John McCain says it means! Obama would rather lose a war than admit he’s wrong! Maliki was just […]