The Angry Bear

General Disclaimer: I don’t know what I am writing about. I am an economist not an electical engineer. This should go without saying, but just in case, remember that I don’t know what I am typing about. Radar is used to determine where airplanes are. One use is air traffic control for civil aviation — the airplanes cooperate. Another is military — hostile aircraft do not cooperate. First in civil aviation, the system is far removed from...

The 2024 presidential election will be between Joe Biden and Donald Trump. Of that we can be certain. We can also be certain that the vote will be very close, and there are geopolitical players who will put their thumbs on the scale. “The Saudi Kingdom’s de facto rule Mohammad bin Salman’s coziness with the Trump family is notorious. Meanwhile, if Trump defeats Biden next year that would allow Vladimir Putin to escape the most monumental mistake of...

Simple commentary. Just started to receive information on increases. Gasoline is a no brainer. We drive a fuel efficient vehicle and do five over as opposed to what others do. It is interesting to hear the complaints. Thirty-gallon gasoline tank plus fast driving and you are getting into some serious money. You can only tell them if they will listen. Most will not and get belligerent. Saudi Arabia and Russia have agreed to extend their voluntary...

Weekly Indicators for September 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The only significant change in any metric is that manufacturing, as measured by the average of the new orders sub-indexes of the regional Feds’ monthly reports is on the very cusp of improving from negative to neutral, due to a big improvement in the New York region. That improvement probably reflects the...

Democrats are good at killing themselves politically in elections. We are also good at not pushing back when our candidates are under fire. Instead, we find excuses to promote others as substitutes. Or, we take our voting to other extremes such as voting for Disney characters, the family dog or cat, themselves, etc. You do not believe such? Twenty-sixteen was the year of the “Others” vote which put a potential criminal and now an indicted...

Why would I write of this event on an economics blog. Fourteen years of age and five years away from being in the service. I was very aware then and a freshman at Lane Tech an all boy’s high school in Chicago. It is economics in the rawest of forms. The suppression of an entire population in the South and in the North. Economic slavery . . . September 15, 2023 (Friday), Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson At 10:22 in...

Has industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators, been dethroned?  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production in the post-WW2 era was the King of Coincident Indicators. In the past 20 years, it may have been dethroned. To wit, in August production increased 0.4% to a new post-pandemic high, but only 0.1% above its previous high last September. Meanwhile manufacturing production also increased, by 0.1%, but is still -0.9% below...

Too Big, too Loud, and Too fast appears to be the thing these days. Either they are jacked up squatting, large tired, multiple rear tires, altered mufflered, adjusted emission control to emit soot from acceleration, etc. Anything to gain attention for those who probably never received such while growing up. As children, we all had our favorite displays of machoism and then we grew up. Other things became more important than the vehicle we drove....

Real retail sales continue to be weak; continue to forecast weakening jobs reports  – by New Deal democrat As usual, retail sales is one of my favorite metrics because it tells us so much about the consumer and, indirectly, the labor market and the total economy. Nominally, retail sales rose 0.6% in August. So did consumer inflation, and the difference rounded to -0.1% for the month. Here’s what the past 2.5 years since the 2021 stimulus...

This just blows me away every time I read one of these articles about what people are thinking about Covid vaccines. And then there is some pseudo-authority who is reinforcing the false paradigm on whether the vaccines works. “Sick, sick, sick,” Digby’s Hullabaloo, digbysblog.net Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo calls the mRNA vaccines “an unsafe medication”. This is incorrect and irresponsible. Someone should ask Ron DeSantis if he would...