The Angry Bear

Despite the continued elevation of continued claims, initial claims signal continued expansion  – by New Deal democrat I’ll comment on personal income and spending later this morning, but let’s start out with our weekly update on jobless claims. Initial claims rose 7,000 to 218,000, while the 4 week average declined -500 to 220,000. With a one week delay, continuing claims rose 86,000 to 1.927 million, a nearly 2 year high: On the more...

Commenter and reader J.P. Mc Jefferson linked to this Lawrence O’Donnell Youtube article “Media still not ready to cover Trump after years of his lies.” It appears; Donald Trump called on the government to “come down hard” on MSNBC and not one major broadcast news network covered it. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains why this is a product of what Brian Klaas calls the “banality of crazy.” It does make you wonder if negative reporting...

Briefly, every morning I get an array of emails in my In-Box offering up what they think can be interesting reads. I would definitely read Economist David Zetland student’s writings on water shortages in other countries. Most Interesting Read Economist David Zetland’s Students Studying the Impact of Water Shortage in Europe, The one-handed economist, The Hague. What something interesting to do? Write to David’s students on his site. David does...

November 28, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson I broke this down into various topics which makes it a bit more directed. Prof. Heather covers broad and interesting territory on the nation’s political activities. Pence: Here at home, the 2024 presidential campaign is heating up. This morning, Katherine Faulders, Mike Levine, and Alexander Mallin of ABC News broke the story that former vice president Mike Pence had...

Forecasting a further upturn in the unemployment rate: what works?  – by New Deal democrat Yesterday I read a post over at Seeking Alpha in which the author confidently predicted a recession in Q1 next year, based exclusively on the NAHB builder sentiment index. Here’s his accompanying graph, comparing builder sentiment with the unemployment rate 17 months later: In case you didn’t already figure it out, the graph forecasts a 7%...

AB: IEA will not allow me to change any wording. Anything in italics or leads with an AB in front is my wording. I believe the following (charts and brief summation) to be a good explanation of where the US stands at far as changes in energy and usage. A little background concerning our home. We live in a mostly electricity using house in terms of energy usage. Our fans are driven by DC (inverters) electricity. We have a heat pump to supply heat...

Maybe you have noticed this and maybe you have not? The USPS or the United States Postal Service does not sell stamps at a huge discount. You may get a few bucks off at Costco. It is not going to be 25% or 50% off what they are sold for as shown here: Lower left-hand corner of the first roll of stamps. Imagine that! The USPS selling 1st class mail stamps for 16.99 cents a stamp? Yeah, right. Facebook allows this advertising scheme of cheap...

Driven by frozen inventory, repeat home prices continue to increase, but downward pressure on shelter inflation remains  – by New Deal democrat Our last piece of important housing information for the month was released this morning; namely repeat home sale prices as measured by the FHFA and Case Shiller. The former increased by 0.6%, and the latter by 0.3%, continuing their increases since the beginning of this year: On a YoY basis, the...

Buy or rent Housing in 2023? Cost of buying has surpassed the cost of renting in 2023. Blame high house prices and soaring mortgage rates. Since 2020 nominal house prices have climbed by roughly 40%. In the same period the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose from 3.1% to 7.3%, lifting the mortgage repayments on a typical house by more than 50%.  Is it cheaper to rent or buy property? economist,...

I have followed Steve Hutkins and retired Postmaster Mark Jamison for years now. Both Mark and I have had conversations both on and off Angry Bear. It appears we are nearing the end of the reconstruct of the USPS. Whether it works as well shy 50,000 employees with the expectation civilians on their own can manage without the experience of their help, service, and delivery remains to be seen. Long read and a worthy read with links! Delivering for...