Anthony DeBarros

The Path to Record Deficits A generation ago, the federal budget was briefly in surplus. Now, it appears headed for a record stretch of peacetime deficits. What happened?

Take a spin in the time machine, back to an era when the federal budget deficit didn’t look like a problem at all. Today, my colleagues @richardrubindc.bsky.social, Rosie Ettenheim and I break down how to the U.S. arrived at record deficits. www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

The Nats should be 4-0 against the Rockies. They're 2-2.

@natschatpodcast.bsky.social What a sad series against the Marlins. 1) The Nats are now just 1 game ahead of the Marlins for the NL East cellar. 2) 0-9 with RISP in today's game! 3) At least Cole Henry looks like a future closer with those two K's and 2.22 ERA.

Exclusive | Economists Raise Questions About Quality of U.S. Inflation Data The Labor Department says staffing shortages reduced its ability to conduct its massive monthly survey, forcing it to turn to less precise guesses.

Some economists are beginning to question the accuracy of recent U.S. inflation data after the federal government said BLS staffing shortages hampered its ability to conduct the massive monthly survey. www.wsj.com/economy/cpi-...

Image of the pgAdmin Query Tool showing the custom font.

Newest versions of pgAdmin now let us customize the font in the Query Tool. Nice upgrade.

Set here to MesloLGL Nerd Font:

U.S. total fertility rate in 2024 only slightly above 2023's low. www.wsj.com/us-news/u-s-...

That explains it.

Transactions The Official Site of Major League Baseball

I may be wrong but the "Transactions" tab here lists almost every Nat changing numbers on April 16. Or is that some sort of glitch?

www.mlb.com/nationals/ro...

@markzuckerman.bsky.social Did the Nats all change uniform numbers recently? If so, what’s the story there?

What Economists See Ahead—and How They Fared Last Year Our survey shows economists expect slower growth and see a recession as more likely. They were pessimistic a year ago, too, and were wrong.

Economists surveyed by the Wall Street Journal expect slower growth this year and a higher chance of recession. Today, my colleague Peter Santilli and I break down our panel's forecasts—and report on how well the panel fared in 2024.

www.wsj.com/economy/econ...

Economic Outlook Dives Just Three Months Into Trump’s Term The probability of a recession has leapt while the growth outlook has slumped, a survey of economists has found.

Since President Trump took office, economists have slashed estimates for growth while raising them for inflation and unemployment. www.wsj.com/economy/trad...

See How Government Spending Is Up Even as Musk Touts Savings The Musk team’s estimated $150 billion in savings barely makes a dent in $6.8 trillion of expenditures largely on autopilot, a WSJ analysis finds.

Federal spending is higher since President Trump took office even as the Department of Government Efficiency slashes contracts, cuts jobs and ends diversity programs, by @anthonydb.bsky.social / @jamesgbenedict www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Microsoft PostgreSQL OSS engine team: reflecting on 2024 | Microsoft Community Hub In  "Microsoft PostgreSQL OSS engine team: reflecting on 2024", the first part of a two part blog post, you will learn about who the Microsoft...

Interesting post on Microsoft engineers' contributions to PostgreSQL in 2024. techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/adforpo...

Why daylight saving time is worse for your body than standard time Daylight saving time gives us more light at the end of the day to enjoy spring and summer activities, but it can have a negative impact on our health.

From this, which is fun and well done:
www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/int...

Yep, that's me.

While DOGE hasn’t offered details about all of the stated savings, it has posted a list of more than 1,100 canceled contracts to its website. As of Friday, it said the savings from these contracts amounted to about $7 billion. The Journal analysis projects the actual savings could be closer to $2.6 billion over the next year if spending levels remained constant—and about 2% of the funds would have gone to contracts related to DEI. Research-focused agencies were among the top targets for cuts, including the Education Department and the Department of Health and Human Services, where DOGE terminated contracts costing the government more than $900 million last year. DOGE terminated more than 60 Health and Human Services contracts including a clinical evaluation of an Alzheimer’s and traumatic brain injury drug and a study of smokers with chronic lung disease. DOGE described these as “administrative expenses.”

My colleagues, @ceostroff.bsky.social, Shane Shifflett, and James Benedict have a fantastic look at DOGE's savings claims: "A WSJ analysis of government data found that many claims of savings were overstated and ‘woke’ cuts were only a tiny fraction of the total." www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

Important note for new readers of Practical SQL! Today's release of pgAdmin v9.0 introduces a "Workspace" layout that's enabled by default. I've written instrux on how to set the layout back to "Classic," which matches the book and is, IMO, better. github.com/anthonydb/pr...

DOGE Staffer Resigns Over Racist Posts A staffer for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whose access to U.S. Treasury payment systems was approved by a federal judge on Thursday has links to a deleted social-media account…

A staffer for Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency whose access to U.S. Treasury payment systems was approved by a federal judge has links to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics

How Trump’s New America Compares With 2017, in 11 Charts Economic and pop-culture indicators trace the country’s path as President-elect Donald Trump returns to Washington for his second term.

This one, indeed, does go up to 11. How economic and other national indicators—and a couple pop-culture touchstones—changed from Trump's first inauguration till now.

www.wsj.com/economy/trum...

Trump’s Return Nudges Economists’ Inflation Outlook Higher Survey finds tariffs, tax cuts and immigration policy could weigh on price outlook for next two years.

In our latest WSJ survey of economists, the panel forecasts higher inflation and interest rates ahead of Trump's return.
www.wsj.com/economy/econ...

2025 Spring Training first workout dates announced Following are the first workout dates, subject to change, both for pitchers and catchers and full squads of the 30 Major League clubs for 2025 Spring Training.

A month till baseball. Let's go.
www.mlb.com/news/spring-...

Screengrab of the Amazon.com website's "Best Sellers in SQL" page, showing "Practical SQL" by Anthony DeBarros in the No. 1 position.

I'm always humbled and grateful when this happens, which it has done a couple times (often coinciding with the start of college semesters). Thank you to all my readers!
practicalsql.com

‘I wanted to do something cool’: Meet the man who made the Minnesota-shaped forest Only a few pilots noticed at first until Google Earth launched in 2001 and a satellite photo of the state-shaped forest went viral.

h/t @mikestucka.bsky.social :
www.twincities.com/2025/01/11/i...

Unemployed Office Workers Are Having a Harder Time Finding New Jobs More than 1.6 million unemployed workers have been job hunting for at least six months

More than 1.6 million unemployed workers have been job hunting for at least six months—a number that has ballooned by more than 50% in the past two years www.wsj.com/economy/jobs...

How Health Insurers Racked Up Billions in Extra Payments From Medicare Advantage The Wall Street Journal’s yearlong investigation into Medicare’s private insurers relied on exclusive access to billions of records of Medicare services.

Throughout the past year, The Wall Street Journal investigated how giant insurers extracted billions in extra payments from the Medicare Advantage system.

Winners have been notified!

The year we put everything on the table "What's the point of the exercise here? Is it to inform people, or to show off what we know and how sophisticated we sound?"

Of all the Nieman Lab predictions for journalism in 2025, this one by @mattwaite.bsky.social resonates most. I would gladly pay for an app that helped me save $15 a week in groceries. www.niemanlab.org/2024/12/the-...

Re-upping this in case you missed it.

To support students, career-switchers and others who want to add SQL to their data analysis skillsets in 2025, I'm providing three free copies of my book, "Practical SQL." To enter a drawing for one of the free copies, please provide all the information below!

forms.gle/ge4ySHjHZbZp...

I see a bunch of people arguing that inflation was transitory, and I don't know of a single person who in 2021 argued that 2.8% core PCE inflation at the end of 2024 would meet any definition of transitory.