The Angry Bear

Democracy Under Threat in Peru! — The Long Downtrodden Majority of Peru are Complaining About Being Governed by a Minority Elite That has Subjugated Them for Some 500 years! — The first headline was the one we read and heard. The second one; too long, too complex. How can it be that a minority elite of European descent can rule a democracy for 200 years now? By keeping the indigenous majority poor and ill-educated then using the...

Editorial by EMPLOY AMERICA on The Fed Chair’s 25bp hike which are aligning with the Fed’s consensus and market beliefs and Powell’s expectations of continuing inflation risks. Gotta make sure the chance of inflation is really dead. Poking at it with 25bp hike now, making sure it is dead, and two more rounds of the same in the near future. Good take by Skanda Amarnath of EMPLOY AMERICA on Fed Chair Powell’s beliefs. Skanda’s belief is the...

January manufacturing at recessionary levels; December construction spending also declines  – by New Deal democrat The first data for the month of January is in, and with one exception, it is pretty bad. The ISM manufacturing index declined -1.0 to 47.4. According to the ISM, 48 is the cutoff below which is more consistent with a recession. Even worse, the new orders subindex cratered, falling 2.6 to 42.5: Going back 75 years, the *only*...

The Prince of Providence was Vincent “Buddy” Cianci. Cianci grew up in Rhode Island. His father was a physician (a proctologist), so he grew up in privilege. He went to the right schools, although being of Italian descent, he came in for some ridicule in this ethnically Balkanized community. He got a law degree from Marquette University.When Cianci decided to run for mayor of Providence, he styled himself as the anti-corruption candidate, taking on...

Mixed Bag Today. Police Actions are making the news. Not just on the street. Major story is police beating a man to death. It was very discouraging to read this. Cop City being built and one protestor dead. Oklahoma prison murdering imprisoned prisoners. Talked with a Police Captain the other day. He was insisting he be called captain. Should I have angered him and insist I be called Sergeant USMC. I had a Communications platoon reporting to me....

California holds out as Arizona, other states submit Colorado River plan, ktar.com, KTAR FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — Six Western states that rely on water from the Colorado River have agreed on a model to dramatically cut water use in the basin, months after the federal government called for action and an initial deadline passed. With the largest allocation of water from the river, California is the lone holdout. Officials said the state would...

House price indexes for November: up like a rocket, down like a feather  – by New Deal democrat As I’ve repeated many times in the past 10 years, in housing prices follow sales with a lag. Housing permits peaked at the beginning of 2022, and starts followed several months later.  This morning the FHFA and Case Shiller house price indexes for November showed continued declines from their seasonally adjusted June 2022 peak, and also continued...

“What the data says about gun deaths in the U.S.,” by John Gramlich a[[ears to be an open-ended study. It does not condemn any particular weapon, style of weapons, or bullet-spewing weapons in general. I find it curious the author does not take a closer look at the assault weapons used today which are found to have killed multiple people in any one instance. Are we still at the stage of seeing the worst to come with these? What he does say is all...

In the real world, if someone spends more money than they make, they run a deficit. Income – Spending = Deficit. Accumulatively, deficits become debt. In order to avoid the accumulation of debt; they need to either reduce spending, increase income, or both; a lessening of income would require a reduction in spending, an increase in spending would beg an increase in income, and so forth. Governmentally, spending stays spending and income becomes...

What to watch most for in this Friday’s jobs report  – by New Deal democrat After a two week drought, this week a plethora of economic stats get reported. Most importantly for my purposes that includes house prices, construction spending, the ISM manufacturing report, and of course on Friday nonfarm payrolls. Speaking of which, 3 of the 5 short leading indicators that haven’t rolled over yet are included in the jobs report – construction and...