The Angry Bear

When I started attending departmental faculty meetings in 1987, there was an emeritus faculty, Harold Katzman, who went to most of the meetings. He rarely said anything, but he did make the effort to show up, perhaps out of personal loyalty. Dr. Katzman was the first graduate student of our department’s founding chair, Dr. Edward Doisy. After he graduated in 1928, Dr. Doisy hired him as a faculty.Shortly before Dr. Katzman died, my then-chairman, Dr....

 – by New Deal democrat As usual, the month starts out with important data on manufacturing and construction. The news was mixed this month and weighted more to the downside in my opinion. First, the ISM report on manufacturing declined again slightly to 48.7. This is the second month in a row that this index has been under the equipoise point of 50. More importantly, the more leading new orders subindex declined sharply to 45.4, the lowest...

We’re seriously considering a hybrid for our next car. One species of the hybrid genus is the “plug-in hybrid,” which seemed appealing to me, both from the standpoint of gas economy and to reduce our carbon footprint. Caveat emptor:“In one study from the ICCT published in 2022, researchers examined real-world driving habits of people in plug-in hybrids. While the method used to determine official emissions values estimated that drivers use electricity...

If you or your loved one had successful brain surgery, you can probably thank my colleague, Dr. Richard Bucholz, Professor of Neurosurgery at Saint Louis University School of Medicine. Dr. Bucholz pioneered and invented the image-guided surgery navigational system marketed by Medtronic as the “Stealth Station.” It is standard equipment in nearly every neurosurgical suite in the world.When Dr. Bucholz was first trained in intracranial surgery, the...

The Arizona population of drivers can be particularly strange at times. Getting on the roadways around here is like attempting to drive the length of US 30 drag strip. As I told the city council, speed limits, stop signs, and stop lights are mere suggestions. If you are in a hurry, just fly by them. The Left Lane Enforcer county sheriff made a film clip of himself lecturing a driver on being in the left lane for too long on the main drag in and...

NOW THAT IT’S TOO LATE, “to do it the easy way.” Dale Coberly . . . Notes on possible fixes after reaching “short range financial inadequacy.” The Social Security Trust Fund is projected to run out of money by 2033. Possible fixes to fix the short fall in the Social Security Trust Fund. first possible fix Wait until 2033 then raise payroll tax 4% (combined worker and employer tax rate). Most workers would only see a 2% raise. This would...

I have written about student loans or have added articles about student loans to Angry Bear here, here, here, here, etc, etc, etc. I go back years on the topic as well as Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice does. Politicians resist loan forgiveness claiming students are taking advantage of the system. It is a lie and many of the students have interest on loans which surpass the principal. I know of no bank or business loan which has such harsh...

I still like to read the news “pages” rather than hear the news. Turning a page is more thorough than watching 2-minute clips on TV news. It challenges and stimulates the mind also. If you want short, cheap, and incomplete state, national, and global news; then the TV is your answer. Reading the daily and weekly news will render far more accurate information. You will decide for yourself what is true or false while reading the detail. US lost...

Kevin Drum has a post up showing that EV sales have plateaued recently in the US. It’s not clear to me whether that’s all EVs or just Teslas, but since Teslas remain the dominant EVs in the US, that’s a distinction without a difference.I’d be happy to see more EVs on the road. But what would make me buy one? Well, one issue is price. I’d consider an econobox EV under $30K, but auto makers seem mostly to be slotting EVs as luxury purchases. Then...

Weekly Indicators for May 27 – 31 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. None of the high frequency indicators made any meaningful change this week. The short term outlook continues to be positive. As I wrote yesterday in my summation of the personal income and spending report, the leading goods-producing sectors of manufacturing and construction are most important to my analysis of where...