The Angry Bear

“Until we are done with the ironies of history (because they will never be done with us), the image of Trotsky will not dissipate.”~Christopher HitchensI’ve had a lifelong fascination with socialism, communism and the Cold War. This probably springs from having grown up during the Cold War at nuclear ground zero for World War III. Also contributing was that I came of age near the end of the Vietnam War, a proxy war between the US and the USSR into...

Let’s check back in on the authoritarian hell hole of Australia. Donald Boudreaux is still tirelessly working to educate people about the dangers of lockdowns and the wisdom of the Great Barrington Declaration strategy of “focused protection”.  Today he quotes this paragraph from an essay by Gigi Foster posted at – hold your breath! – the Brownstone Institute: Many of those spared death in 2020 or 2021 from COVID are succumbing now in 2022 as...

Initial claims: a little cooling in the white hot employment market Initial jobless claims rose 21,000 to 218,000, continuing above the recent 50+ year low of 166,000 set in March. The 4 week average also rose by 8,250 to 199,500, compared with the all-time low of 170,500 set six weeks ago. On the other hand, continuing claims declined another -25,000 to 1,317,000, yet another new 50 year low (but still well above their 1968 all-time low of...

May 19, 2022 – by Heather Cox Richardson (substack.com), “Letters from An American“ Today, the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol sent a letter to Representative Barry Loudermilk (R-GA), asking for his voluntary cooperation in their investigation. The committee members believe he has “information regarding a tour you led through parts of the Capitol complex on January 5, 2021,” the day before the...

Housing permits and starts decline slightly, but housing still an economic positive over the next 12 months Housing permits and starts declined, but not by much, in April. Importantly, while typically permits, especially single family permits, lead these series, in the past year there has been a unique divergence between permits and starts due to construction supply shortages.  This has been reflected in the number of housing units...

Economic Policy Institute offers an explanation that our current inflation is different from previous recessions in the US in addition to what NDd and Barkley Rosser offer : Since the trough of the COVID-19 recession in the second quarter of 2020, overall prices in the NFC sector have risen at an annualized rate of 6.1%—a pronounced acceleration over the 1.8% price growth that characterized the pre-pandemic business cycle of 2007–2019....

Industrial production continues to show excellent growth I call industrial production the King of Coincident Indicators, because it speaks volumes about where the economy is at any particular moment, and empirically is the indicator whose peaks and troughs coincide most definitively with NBER recession dates. In April the story told by industrial production continued to be very positive, as total production rose by 1.1%, and manufacturing...

One of the biggest design flaws in the ACA is that subsidies for low-income families buying policies on insurance exchanges were too low.  Congress raised the subsidies temporarily, but now they are set to expire right before the November election.  From Huffpo: Health insurance premiums for millions of Americans will spike if Congress doesn’t act in the next few months, with particularly big increases in politically contested states, according to...

Adjudged to be AFFIRMED. Barrett, J., delivered the (her first?)  opinion of the Court, in which Roberts, C. J., and Thomas, Alito, and Kavanaugh, JJ., joined. Gorsuch, J., filed a dissenting opinion, in which Breyer, Sotomayor, and Kagan, JJ., joined. Hmmm. Fill out an application for a driver’s license, make a mistake, by ticking the wrong box questioning citizenship, the state says you are still qualified to have a driver’s license. and the...