The Angry Bear

Industrial production improves, with help from vehicle production: travelin’ man edition  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production increased 1.0% in July. Its manufacturing component increased 0.5%. Total production is still down -0.6% from its peak last autumn, while manufacturing is down -01.%: These are not recessionary numbers.  It’s worth emphasizing that the unspooling of pandemic related bottlenecks is significantly affecting...

Will a high dose of Ivermectin for 6 Days impact Covid? As a biochemist, I find the argument of a lack of mechanism for Ivermectin as a justification for prescribing it for COVID particularly pernicious. While it is correct to say that we didn’t know the mechanism for aspirin for decades after we knew it worked (one could say the same about the smoking and lung cancer), that’s not a logical basis for prescribing a drug. The gold standard is a...

TANSTAAFL. There Ain’t No Such Thing as a Free Lunch. Someone pays, somehow. The standard textbook example is pilots who refill their plane at a gas station that offers them a “free” steak dinner while charging five cents a gallon more than another station at the same airport. The pilot and co-pilot get $50 dinners for free, the gas station gets an “extra” $150 for the gas sold, and everyone is happy. I believe this story is better at...

“The statement received pushback from environmentalists concerned that constructing new infrastructure to transport more fossil fuels will allow more oil to be extracted and burned, contributing to climate change. “Appeals court strikes down Utah oil railroad approval, siding with environmentalists,” msn.com. Additionally, communities in neighboring Colorado including Eagle County and the city of Glenwood Springs — which filed a brief in support...

If you did not know, now you do know. Just like our fellow blogs, Angry Bear posts have been recorded in the Library of Congress. I could not get in tonight to see which posts ere and like I have other times. Something to think about for at least one cup of coffee. Much of this occurred over Dan’s watch. Tags: Library of Congress...

In housing construction, the last domino still refuses to fall: Travelin’ Man edition  – by New Deal democrat [First, a blogging note: I will be traveling for the next week and a half. I’ll keep posting the data, but the posts are likely to be brief, and may be a day late. On days when there is no data, I will probably not post at all.] When it comes to housing construction, I’ve been waiting for the last domino to fall. Once again in July,...

Paul Krugman has the amazing ability to get me (briefly) interested in economic theory. He writes that the (non provisional) IRA has had a larger than expected impact on investment writing: A new blog post from Heather Boushey of the Council of Economic Advisers argues that Biden’s industrial policy helps solve what she calls the “chicken and egg problem,” in which private-sector actors are reluctant to invest unless they’re sure that others will...

Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) first came to my attention just a couple years ago. Apparently, anything could be an NFT. Per Investopedia:“Non-fungible tokens (NFTs) are assets that have been tokenized via a blockchain. They are assigned unique identification codes and metadata that distinguish them from other tokens.“NFTs can be traded and exchanged for money, cryptocurrencies, or other NFTs—it all depends on the value the market and owners have placed...

With the passing of my friend Daniel Crawford, I have had to take on new responsibilities. Angry Bear will continue like it has for the last 20 years. Retired Prof. Joel Eissenberg has joined with me is writing at Angry Bear. There will be more new writers joining us with new topics. I am losing my vision in my right eye and the left is not so far behind it. I have found it difficult to write with one eye and the other fuzzy. It appears the...

July retail sales: gas and vehicle sales continue to dominate the trend  – by New Deal democrat As always, real retail sales tell us a great deal about what is happening in the consumer economy. July continued the recent trend since gas prices started declining over a year ago. Nominally retail sales increased 0.7%. Since consumer prices increased 0.2%, real retail sales increased 0.5%. Here they are compared with real personal expenditures...