The Angry Bear

The “gold standard” of employment reports suggests that last summer’s job growth was even weaker than we thought  – by New Deal democrat While the monthly jobs report gets all the headlines, the “gold standard” for actual employment gains and losses is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which as its name indicates, unlike the payrolls report is not a survey but rather an actual census of about 97% of all employers, via their...

Remember chasing the mosquito man’s truck? silive.com, Cassy Sommer  During the fifties and sixties, it was not unusual to see trucks spraying DDT near heavily wooded and swampy areas. I certainly do not recall kids running behind truck spraying the areas. Some claim this was a common practice. My aunts and mom would have had a fit is we did such. ~~~~~~~~ The U.S. Department of Agriculture was the federal agency with responsibility for...

When I was in college majoring in microbiology, we were taught that diseases like scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jacob and kuru were caused by “slow viruses.” Over many years, it has become clear that misfolded proteins, not viruses, are the cause of these and other spongiform encephalopathies. Stanley Prusiner struggled for a long time to convince the scientific community of prions, for which he eventually got the Nobel Prize. There are many historical...

Who owns your medical records? Gooz News, Merrill Goozner February 12, 2024 Hint: It’s not you. Nor do they belong to taxpayers, who paid for their collection. Merrill Goozner talks about Medical records. Merrill comments also offer up more detail about Lurie Hospital being hacked. Angry Bear had also covered the Lurie Hospital. Cyber thieves hacked their way into the computer system at Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago last week,...

The bottoming process in existing home sales continues, as YoY price comparisons increase  – by New Deal democrat The bifurcation of the housing market between new and existing home components continues, as existing home sales continue near their bottom, but with a little improvement. Specifically, in January sales increased 120,000 on an annualized basis from an upwardly revised (by 80,000) 3.88 million to 4.00 million. This is the seventh...

The good news on jobless claims continues  – by New Deal democrat The good news on jobless claims continued this week, as initial claims declined -12,000 to 201,000. The four-week moving average also declined, by -3,500 to 215,250. Continuing claims, with the usual one-week delay, declined -27,000 to 1.862 million: Needless to say, this also helped the YoY comparisons, which are more important for forecasting purposes. Initial claims are...

This is an excellent read if you have some time just to read. When they close facilities, there is an eerie feeling to the departure of people from a soon to be empty building. The people are gone, a silence envelops the place that hosted years of manufacturing product activity. Last man out turns off the lights. A building where the knowledge departed in the form of Labor. I have worked in these types of factories and consulted to them also....

Apparently, US PMG Louis DeJoy is taking a lot of heat about the continuing failure of the post office in reaching his detailed goals. Having not evolved from the Post Office, Louis is having a tough time implementing processes and procedures that may have worked to some extent in the public sector. Except the USPO is a completely different beast tasked with goals without regard for profitability. In other words, you still have to serve the areas...

Hemlock Semiconductor continues as an independently run entity with two shareholders: Corning Inc. owns 80.5%, and Shin-Etsu Chemical owns 19.5%. Hemlock specializing in specialty glass, ceramics, and related materials and technologies used in semiconductors. Biden has a high-tech problem in Michigan, Christine Mui, Politico, 02/20/2024 Some Information Corning Incorporated is an American multinational technology...

Is Late Economic Reporting the Cause of bad perceptions by the population? Open Thread February 13 2024 Inflation cooled again in January . . . Angry Bear Tags: Open Thread Feb 21 2024