The Angry Bear

Who saved the US from a pandemic and delivered a good economy. The 2024 political cycle, a triumph of recycling. President Biden and former President Trump are preparing to star in a sequel most Americans do not care to see. That means that eyes will be on the vice-president, Kamala Harris, as well. Because Mr Biden is the oldest president ever, and would be 82 at his second inauguration, voters will scrutinize Ms. Harris with unusual care. The...

In 1980 I had a long argument with an unfortunate guy who didn’t just say “let’s agree to disagree” which sometimes works. He was arguing that the US should build B-1s, then the weapon of the future. I argued that the US should rely on Tomahawk missiles (launched from B-52s) which I asserted were the weapon of the future. It is now what was in 1980 the future and guess what weapon was used yesterday (hint it wasn’t a B-1 bomber). I love to say...

Fireworks, drone swarms, military history and the military future. Oh and China always China. This is a followup to The 101st Chairborn: History is a Prankster The key new point is drone *swarms* that is thousands of drones in coordinated flight. the point is that e even if a drone is slow so that the chance of shooting it down is 99.99%, the chance of shooting down all of 10,000 isn’t (0.9999)^10000 = 1/e because the drones draw fire from...

Industrial production continues in near-recessionary trajectory  – by New Deal democrat In contrast to this morning’s good news on consumption, production continued its lackluster 2023 all the way to the end. Total industrial production (blue in the graph below) increased 0.1% in December, but revisions to the two previous months totaled -0.2%, so the net result was a -0.1% decrease compared with where we thought we were in November....

Decades ago, I read a column by Andrew Young, the former Atlanta Mayor and UN representative, in which he wrote that you should never trust anyone who says they aren’t racist. You should say I’m working on my racism.Recently, the former South Carolina governor and current GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley omitted to mention that slavery was a cause of the Civil War (it was *the* cause–see the Cornerstone Document, as just one exhibit). Now,...

Most state laws back the company when it comes to employment. Plus, you don’t have the cash to make a fight out of it. So move on to something better, forget them, do something great, chalk it up to experience, learn from it, and ask the right questions the next go around. Being let-go happens. Reasons could be because of the economy, job is transferred, boss does not like you, or maybe you are just to slow at acclimating to the company...

December real retail sales: the good economic news keeps on coming  – by New Deal democrat The good economic news kept coming with this morning’s retail sales report for December. Remember that this is one of my favorite indicators because, adjusted for population, it is a fairly good long leading indicator, and on a short term basis has a consistent record of leading the trend in employment. Nominally retail spending increased 0.6% for the...

Every day brings new of “breakthroughs” in biomedical research. Most of these are incremental advances, and many you never hear about again because they couldn’t be replicated, failed in early clinical trials, or some other problem.But as described in this link from Wired, I think this could be real progress for Parkinson’s therapy research. While I’ve checked for all the known risk alleles in genes like SNCA, PINK1, LRRK2, PARK7, etc. in my genome...

The decline in workers’ share of the total pie is far more extreme than standard measures suggest. Total Income, and the Collapse of the Household Labor Share, Wealth Economics, Steve Roth The best way to start this post is with a graph that many will find surprising, even eye-popping. The graph kind of speaks for itself — pretty dismayingly, especially post-covid. The rest of this post just explains it. This graph answers a question...

Before you read the NPR article, I “will” make a few comments. In no way did the Sacklers not know of the impact of the OxyContin. The sale of it as being non addictive was made up from the get-go of the product. Indeed, one larger than life promotion of OxyContin was done with the misuse of the Jick and Porter letter as taken from The New England Journal of Medicine. In 1980, Doctors Jick and Porter had written a “one-paragraph letter” that...