The Angry Bear

A commenter on AB recently noted that EVs are dead, to which I responded that there sure are a lot of zombie EVs here in East Providence.Kevin Drum has a post up about EVs showing that zombie EVs have been proliferating exponentially since 2011 and arithmetically since 2020. So many dead EVs. Who knew?zombie EV sales Tags: Electric vehicle sales ...

When I started as a PhD student at UNC-Chapel Hill, my stipend as an NIH trainee was $3900/year (ca. $20K in today’s dollars). When I started as a postdoc at Washington University in 1982, my salary was $12,800 (ca. $41K in today’s dollars). At the time, I regarded this as the opportunity cost of PhD and postdoc training. 2023 me is satisfied that I was able to make up that opportunity cost on the spreadsheet, not to mention job satisfaction that...

Richardson has a post-election analysis up at her substack blog. Some money grafs:“In Virginia, Governor Glenn Youngkin campaigned hard to flip the state senate to the Republicans, telling voters that if his party had control of the whole government he would push through a measure banning abortion after 15 weeks. This has been a ploy advanced by Republicans to suggest they are moderating their stance on abortion, and Youngkin appeared to be trying out...

From a comment thread over at jabberwocking.com:“For a party that’s always on suicide watch according to the pollsters, Democrats sure have been winning a lot of elections these past six years.”

Prof. Heather discusses Biden motivating the FTC to start the process of breaking up monopolies and weaken up the economic power of these large entities. She draws upon the history of Roosevelt in 1908 doing similar and meeting resistance from House politicians led by Joe Cannon as supported by big business to stymie his efforts. Sounds familiar to what we are experiencing today. November 5, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox...

Scenes from the October jobs report: soft landing vs. continued slow deceleration  – by New Deal democrat  First, an editorial note: economic news is light this week, so don’t be surprised if I play hooky for a day or two. That being said, let’s take a look at the most important trends, as I see them, from Friday’s employment report. The Big Question is, are we having a proverbial “soft landing?” Or is that just an illusory phase on...

Count me among those who hope for the dawning of the driverless car age to happen soon. If I live long enough, the day will come when someone—my wife, my daughter—will extend their hand to demand the car keys. The prospect of being able to summon a driverless car to take me to the grocery store, hardware store, doctor’s office, theater, etc. is alluring. If I lived in Manhattan, I could take the bus or subway to any place I’d likely want, but public...

Article by the economist David Zetland citing other articles about boats during the time period of 1875-2020 as taken from The Atlantic. Like myself, David is a subscriber. It provide some interesting reads on a variety of topics. Some old, insightful articles on boats, The one-handed Economist, David Zetland The Atlantic has been publishing since 1857. As a subscriber, I can access their archive, which is full of interesting tidbits. To focus...

This is mostly a recital of an article by Peterson-KFF (March 2022) on medical debt as held by average people. A few tweaks here and there. The article content adds another block of reasoning to the foundation for Medicare for All, single payer, etc. It is long and I know some who have short attention spans. Myself? I like numbers as it tells me more in a direct fashion than decipher words and intent. If you have a few minutes, read it and scan the...

Weekly Indicators for October 30 – November 3 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. One way I keep track of the producer side of the economy is via the long leading indicator of corporate profits and the short leading indicator of the stock market. As is implied, the former has a long history of leading the latter. Except that the stock market turned down in 2022 before profits did and...