The Angry Bear

In an effort to slow down the severe recession as well as the persistently high unemployment rate following the 2007-08 Financial Crisis, the government increased federal spending. As a result, the federal debt reached its limit on multiple occasions from 2008 to 2011 which led to a series of increases of the debt limit. In 2011, the Treasury asked for its borrowing capacity to be extended. The 2011 U.S. Debt Ceiling Crisis led to a contentious...

This Hill article was up on Naked Capitalism’s Links this morning. More of the Democrats urging extreme caution in pursuing the 14th Amendment as a solution to a debt limit which is an agreement between parties and not a requirement. One could always print more money to resolve the issue also. Meanwhile, citizens having little political power presently are being held hostage and ultimately will pay a price. 14th Amendment talk on debt limit...

Credit conditions worsen, and likely to worsen further due to Debt Ceiling Debacle II  – by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey, which measures credit on offer by banks, and the demand for credit by their customers, was released yesterday afternoon for Q1, and the news – unsurprisingly – was not good. Credit conditions not only tightened, but they tightened at a higher rate than they had in previous quarters, as about half of...

The Atlantic’s Brooke Harrington has an article about Justice Thomas’s friendship with people outside the court which includes gift-giving. There is no reciprocation of “its my turn now to buy the dinner.” The gifts are far more than just a lunch or dinner at a much-desired restaurant. That there are no rules defining ethical behavior at the Supreme Court, there is still an aura of professional and legal behavior binding them. Are the scales tipped...

Scenes from the April employment report: the Fed just can’t kill the employment “beast”  – by New Deal democrat There’s no economic news this morning, so let’s take a closer look at some important trends from last Friday’s April jobs report . As I and many others wrote, an important theme was that the deceleration in job gains continued, as shown in this graph since January 2021 (note 222,000 is subtracted so that latest average is at zero...

Checking my emails this morning and found this article as taken from MedPage Today listing the JAMA Network Open article. The article was accepted for publication on March 13 of this year. It finally came to be published May 3, 2023. The study has all the credentials of a particular matter. The data coming from PubMed and Web of Science as well as the reference lists of eligible articles. Preprints are included. I did not include the credentials...

The title is mine. We do not appear to have any good guys as portrayed in all the western movies we would see on the big screen. No Wyatt Earp or Matt Dillion to take care of the bad guys. Maybe Justice Clarence will get out there and pull a bit of guard duty to protect the majority against a minority of abusers. I think there is enough historical data to support such an action by him. McCarthy maybe? Big on talk and little do . . . May 6th,...

Factbox: What’s in Republican McCarthy’s debt-limit spending cut package? Reuters, Andy Sullivan. Items Republicans and McCarthy are pushing for in a debt-limit package. The bill would essentially pair $4.5 trillion in spending cuts with a $1.5 trillion increase in the federal debt limit. Republicans are wanting to talk about government borrowing. “What’s in your wallet,” today as one bank loves to ask when it comes to credit cards. Well,...

run75441’s footnote to NDd Weekly Analysis . . . The analysis by NDd is one of the most thorough ones, I read on a weekly basis. It sums up the week casting the numbers for the week in comparison to what is going on economically. What I see happening in the economy, NDd brings to light for free at Seeking Alpha. If there is anyone here more knowledgeable in numbers than I, you should still be rading NDd’s take. The link is in the title. Weekly...

That Pesky First Amendment Scores Again! annieasksyou… I am often critical of the mainstream media, whom I find too insensitive to the fragility of our democracy in their determination to present “both sides” of issues that often don’t have two sides. For example, I’m more than frustrated with much of the coverage of the House Republicans’ willingness to throw our economy over the cliff if Biden doesn’t accept the demands of their most radical,...