The Angry Bear

 – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose significantly last week, up 13,000 to 242,000, the highest level since last August. The four-week moving average rose 4,750 to 227,000, the highest level since last September. And with the usual one-week delay, continuing claims rose 30,000 to 1.820 million, the highest since this January: There is no doubt at this point that jobless claims are in a significant uptrend. But note from the...

by Fix the Court AB: April 2023 Propublica reported on the largesse of outsiders and their generous nature of their gift giving to SCOTUS. June 2024 and we are again hearing of the propensity of the gift givers to SCOTUS and in particular Justice Clarence Thomas. If only they acted in the same way with much of the population who could use $6 million in aid to exist. ~~~~~~~~ “Fix the Court” unveiled a list of the gifts the justices have...

by Steve Roth Originally Published at Wealth Economics Wealth concentration got just a tiny bit less extreme. The bottom 50% of American wealth holders got richer in the last three years: in 2021, ’22, and ’23 — not just in absolute dollar terms, but relative to richer folks. The percentage growth was faster than it was for wealthier groups, so wealth inequality went down — but only by a smidge. The first thing to know is that the Bottom...

There are many comments about the increasing costs of automobile insurance. In Michigan, once the no fault insurance was dropped and catastrophic injury insurance was cut, the care of long-term care was edecimated. Many people with serious lifetime injuries were left to fend on their own after reduced payments to caregivers. Past payments to medical was cut in half. The reserve funds were cut also when reimbursed back to customers. I guess what I...

May CPI continued to be all about shelter  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices in May showed no inflation at all, as a decline in gas prices helped the headline number come in unchanged. YoY inflation decelerated -0.1% to 3.3% – continuing in the narrow 3.0%-3.4% range it has been in for the last year. The bottom line remains that almost the entire inflation “problem” is with shelter, which increased 0.4% again, while the YoY rate...

Apparently the administration is letting Ukraine hit military targets in Russia, though still with some restrictions.  This is way overdue.  It seems clear that Russia under Putin is an expansionist power.  Only a decisive defeat will prevent brutal ethnic cleansing in Ukraine.  Defeat may also lead Putin to refrain from further aggression against his neighbors, and even get him to accept a vision of Russia as an ordinary European country that...

As the title says Trump met with a Court Probation Officer. A first for a president. The Probation Officer will assess him for resources, mental health, and criminal record. Trump’s attitude will play a part in this also. Hopefully. his attorney advises him to shut up. Which if he is smart, he will take the advice. Then again, he is of the opinion he will never go to prison. It is interesting, first president tried in a state court, convicted,...

A long and interesting read. And yes on paying the price. Article by David and Lindsay on what is happening today with increasing pricing across the economy. You can experience it in just about every part of the economy. Further on down this article the authors say, this is more about pricing than supply chain. I would say this is true. However, you can discern whether excess pricing can be justified by reviewing the supply chain costs. Not...

[embedded content] WSJ. President Biden’s unprecedented release of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserves in 2022 turned the White House into an unusually active player in the volatile crude market. The flood of emergency supplies helped arrest surging oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine and pulled billions of dollars into the Energy Department’s coffers in the process. Oil prices have sputtered since and allowed officials who sold high to...

 – by New Deal democrat This is a continuation of my post from yesterday discussing the large divergences between the Household and Establishment jobs surveys. A big current issue with the Household Survey is whether, by relying on Census estimates, it has substantially underestimated population growth, and in particular immigration-driven growth, in the past two years. Here’s a graph from Wolf Street, the source material of which I have...