The Angry Bear

Initial claims: yellow caution flag turns more orange  – by New Deal democrat Initial claims, which were one of the most positive indicators of all last year, have turned darker in the last several months, and are edging closer to triggering their recession warning levels. Claims were unchanged at a revised 264,000 last week, the highest level in over 18 months. The more important 4 week average rose 8,500 to 255,750. Continuing claims, with...

This commentary is along the lines of what I have been taught when I was consulting with Ingersoll Engineers in Rockford and which is now extinct. My background includes manufacturing planning at all levels domestically and internationally for US and foreign companies. Labor’s wages are a small part of the Cost of Manufacturing, etc. Spencer England and I went round and round on this topic. Manufacturing, Inventory and Throughput planning was my...

Much like Kip Sullivan in Minnesota/PNHP who Angry Bear has featured, Kay Tillow of Kentucky is a Single Payer activist. You will find Kip saying similar things about Medicare Advantage, etc. And we are all a little bit different attempting to reach the same goals . . . preventing the privatization of Medicare and achieving Single Payer. Kay’s article appeared on Common Dreams. I have added some things to her article and emphasized some points I...

Real wage growth leads spending; meaning spending seems likely to stall after an increase over the next few months  – by New Deal democrat No big economic news today, so I wanted to pick up on a subject I began a week ago Monday; namely, taking a detailed look at personal spending, i.e., consumption. To put it in more socially relevant terms, what allows average American households to spend more, or to cut back? And what are its ramifications...

Freya’sday Five Elements … I caught up with Reich’s Substack Commentary by Robert Reich on Homeless on the Desert. June 16, 2023 in g’da said New to the blogroll lineup, from Robert Reich’s Substack and the Smirking Chimp The Washington Post calls Trump’s vision for a second term “authoritarian.” That vision includes mandatory stop-and-frisk. Deploying the military to fight street crime, break up gangs, and deport immigrants. Purging the...

I live halfway between Phoenix and Tucson. Pretty much what you would call desert if you were new to the area like I am. Water is an issue as much of it comes from the Colorado river. The limits to draw water from the Colorado are still being determined or in a flux. The states are jockeying for more to insure growth. Nothing is stopping our small city from issuing more building permits. Irrigation efficiency for who? – The one-handed economist,...

Housing under construction increases back close to record; good economic news, but ammunition for a hawkish Fed  – by New Deal democrat Last month I wrote that “the Fed’s sledgehammer attempt via one of the most aggressive rate hike campaigns in its history appears to be on the verge of failure. That’s because housing construction, more than a year after the Fed started its campaign, is not meaningfully cooperating.” This month’s report did...

Big business organization in the form of the Chamber of Commerce and a Phamaceutical company are joining together and taking on the government to keep it from negotiating pharmaceutical pricing. Chances are well in favor of this ending up in SCOTUS based upon a moneyed corporation willing to spend its way into court. A resource Gideon Wainwright did not have. Those doors have mostly closed for citizens. And today, we have states lacking...

“From his very first term, Bush shocked many by reaching who had either been convicted or pleaded guilty to crimes during the Reagan and Bush administrations’ and others who many felt should have been indicted.“ “You have a very long list of people and what emerged through the two terms was that people who seemed to be accused of violating the law had a rapid accent in this administration.“ “Now, instead of investigating that, the congress...

The death of Daniel Ellsberg on Friday reminded me of his contribution to economics and his influence on my own thinking. In 1987, I was at Cornell, beginning an abortive PhD candidacy. In one of my courses there was an assigned reading on decision theory by Leonard Savage. One of the footnotes referred to an article by “Daniel Ellsberg” and I naturally wondered if it was the same Daniel Ellsberg of Pentagon Papers fame. “Risk, Ambiguity and the...