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The Angry Bear

Progressives made the perfect the enemy of the good.  Now poor children are going to bed hungry.

It’s hard to know why things shake out in Congress the way they do.  Why hasn’t there been agreement on a climate bill?  Why hasn’t a compromise been reached on a child tax credit?  Why not better preparation for the next pandemic, or even for the next wave of this pandemic?  From the outside it’s hard to say, but I am inclined to think that Schumer and Biden both bear considerable responsibility for these failures. A deeply disturbing article by...

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Biden wants to give Putin an off ramp

From Reuters: U.S. President Joe Biden said on Monday he is worried that Russian President Vladimir Putin does not have a way out of the Ukraine war, and Biden said he was trying to figure out what to do about that.. . .Biden said Putin is a very calculating man and the problem he worries about now is that the Russian leader “doesn’t have a way out right now, and I’m trying to figure out what we do about that.” As far as I can tell, Biden has...

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A “Big Picture” look at housing

A “Big Picture” look at housing at Seeking Alpha; plus an in-depth look at existing home sales and inventory I have one of my periodic “Big Picture” looks at housing up over at Seeking Alpha. One economic relationship – whether sales lead inventory for existing homes as well as new ones – has been extremely difficult to nail down, since for the past number of years the NAR has only allowed FRED to post the last one year of its data.  Well,...

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The Passing Of Axel Leijonhufvud

The Passing Of Axel Leijonhufvud  On May 5, Swedish economist Axel Leijonhufvud died at age 88. I only met him once when he attended a seminar I gave in Trento, Italy a decade ago. I always admired his work and felt lots of sympathy with it, and I think he liked what I had to say at least in my seminar that day.  He was someone who stood outside of orthodoxy while not being clearly tied to any particular school of economic thought.  However, he...

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Nat Gas Up, SPR, Oil, Distillates, Product supply Low

RJS, Focus on Fracking __________ Summary: Natural gas price hits 164 month high after doubling in 2 months; SPR at a 1058 week low, total US oil supplies at a 746 week low; distillates supplies at a 729 week low, total oil + products inventories at a 711 week low, gasoline imports at a 8 month high; natural gas rigs at a 31 month high.. ___________ Natural gas prices hit 164 month high after doubling in 2 months Oil prices rose for...

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A Woman’s Right to Safe Healthcare Outcomes

In April 2019, “I finished an article entitled A Woman’s Right to Safe Healthcare Outcomes.” I spent six weeks reading about this for a group which asked me to write on it from a male’s perspective. It took me all of that time. I could have doubled the size of the article I wanted to write to get the information out there. There was much to be said about the dangers women face becoming pregnant and giving birth. What prompted the resurrection of...

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Can empire-sized Republics long survive, and the failure of judicial supremacy as a bulwark

On the self-government of prehistorical human settlements, whether empire-sized Republics can long survive, and the failure of judicial supremacy as a bulwark   Can the Empire-sized Republic long survive? This was the issue I pondered after Donald Trump was elected President in 2016. Once a country gets big enough, do elected officials ultimately fail, and people inevitably turn to an autocrat to lead them?  That led me on a journey reading the...

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Has Putin shown us his off ramp?

Putin is looking for an off ramp and has outlined his main terms. In mid-March, it became clear that a full-blown Russian defeat in Ukraine was a real possibility.  That possibility has grown in the past few weeks as the Russians have continued to perform shambolically in every way possible, and NATO has increased its military support for Ukraine.  The scary open question was – and is – whether Russia would escalate in some fashion.  There was...

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Trade Deficit Rose on Imports of Industrial Supplies, Materials and Consumer Goods

RJS, MarketWatch 666 Summary: Trade Deficit Rose 22.3% to Record High in March on Higher Imports of Industrial Supplies & Materials and Consumer Goods Our trade deficit was at another record high in March, 22.3% higher than February’s record, as both our imports and exports increased, but our imports increased by quite a bit more . . . the Commerce Department’s report on our international trade in goods and services for March indicated that...

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