The Angry Bear

Back before, municipal and state governments, pension funds, etc. mostly invested in financials of the manufacturing sort. Then, America was in the manufacturing business. An issuing manufacturer was contractually bound to hand over the return owed. The investors were entitled. If they didn’t get their entitle, it was, ‘”see you in court.” In 2023, in Biden v. Nebraska, six states are arguing that Biden’s proposed cancellation of certain student loan...

Weekly Indicators for April 10 -14 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My ‘Weekly Indicators’ post is up at Seeking Alpha. The slow drip-drip-drip of deceleration generally continues. Perhaps most significantly, YoY consumer spending as measured by Redbook sank to a new post-pandemic lockdown low of only +1.5%. But other coincident indicators in particular, like tax withholding, appear resilient. As usual, clicking over and reading...

The last few days, I have been pointing to the Opioid epidemic which did not just start with Fentanyl. It has been ongoing before the introduction of Qxycontin by the Sadler’s Purdue Pharmaceuticals. In 1996. It was advertised by Purdue as a nonaddictive drug by misquoting Doctors Jane Porter and Herschel Jick’s letter to NEJM about their findings during a Boston Collaborative Drug Surveillance Program at Boston University Medical Center, Waltham,...

Real manufacturing and trade sales probably rose to a new record high in February; may have declined in March  – by New Deal democrat Real manufacturing and trade sales is one of the 4 monthly coincident indicators most monitored by the NBER to determine whether the economy is in expansion or recession. Because the reporting of this series lags badly (by 2 months), I have developed several placeholders to estimate it on a more timely basis....

Positive revisions make for a good March industrial production report  – by New Deal democrat If retail sales for March were bad, industrial production (blue in the graph below) was at very least mixed to the upside. Total production increased +0.4%, and on top of that February was revised higher by +0.2%, and January was revised higher by +0.5%. The not so good news is that while manufacturing (red) was also revised higher by +0.5% for...

Yes I am complaining about filing a tax return (I wonder how many people are blogging such complaints today). I am trying to e-file a return for [un-named relative X] who is a full time student with zero income and IRS anxiety. OK so we are silly as X is not required to file a return. So the IRS has an apparently covenient web based e-file system https://www.freefilefillableforms.com/home/continuereturn.php (warning do not click this link if you...

The other day I posted some charts covering drug addiction. in the US. The first Bar Chart below matches up with Figure 3 in that post “Drug Overdose Death Rates in the US,” Angry Bear. Today’s post as taken from the Senate Joint Economic Committee fleshes out the numbers cited there and also here in the first chart below. It was more than just people catching Covid. There was a significant increase in the numbers of US citizens inflicted with Opioid...

March real retail sales lay an egg, suggests downturn in nonfarm payrolls by the end of summer  – by New Deal democrat  After a quiet early part of the week, today we get a deluge of data: retail sales and industrial production for March, and total business sales for February. Because real total business sales are one of the 4 big coincident indicators tracked by the NBER, and because retail sales are about 1/3rd of the total, and industrial...

Initial claims continue to warrant yellow caution flag  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims last week rose 11,000 to 239,000. The more important 4 week average rose 2,250 to 240,000. Continuing claims, with a one week delay, decreased 13,000 to 1,823,000: At this juncture the YoY change is more important, because increases of more than 10%, especially in the 4 week average, or monthly, are a yellow caution flag for recession, and...

It was, maybe, the late eighties and I was at Oscar Mayer buying packaging for products such as Lunchables, hot dogs, bacon, etc. and the labels. This buy included the graphics. Management thought they were overwhelming me. Indeed, I was thriving having commandeered on OM Wiener mo-jet to visit suppliers in Minnesota and Massachusetts. I did not ask, they offered one of the planes up. A side category responsibility for me was the purchase of...