The Angry Bear

. . . called The Crisis of Democratic Capitalism, and he was interviewed by Rob Johnson on the Economics & Beyond podcast.  Here’s a quote from 50:20 in the pod (my transcription, done before I saw the official transcript at the link): Now a core thesis of my book . . . is that If you want a capitalist order, and if you want democracy . . . then you must accept that the free market will have to be contained within and tempered by an active...

Commentary from Letters from an American by commenter Fern McBride Will it last?’ (excerpts). The combination of a hiring boom and ebbing inflation has confounded forecasters, who’ve been warning of a recession, By David J. Lynch Whether the United States can keep defying the recession odds may depend on what happens in industries such as leisure and hospitality, health care and entertainment. These service businesses are enjoying a boomlet...

Open thread Jan. 25, 2023, Angry Bear, angrybearblog.com

Yesterday, we went off on the topic discussing changes or increases to the Household numbers. This commentary by Dean Baker looks like it might fit with our earlier discussion. Job Growth: Is the Household or Establishment Survey Right? cepr.net. Dean Baker. The January report showed that the economy added 517,000 jobs in January, far more than most analysts had expected. The household survey showed the unemployment rate dipping down to 3.4...

Scenes from the blockbuster jobs report 1: in January, nobody* got laid off! (*hyperbole)  – by New Deal democrat There’s no important new economic data until Thursday this week. Meanwhile, there was lots to digest about Friday’s blockbuster jobs report, which I have now done, so I’m going to spend a couple (maybe 3!) days diving in to the details. Today I’ll deal with how seasonality and a very tight labor market were decisively important...

What’s fair is fair: The PRC issues a final order on the “appropriate share” issue, Save the Post Office, Steve Hutkins Another one of the posts by Steve Hutkins about the USPS. The effort by commercial interests to get the USPS to increase pricing has been going on for years. At the bottom, I have attached a post by Mark Jamison (“When Titans Collide: UPS petitions the PRC to change USPS costing methodologies”) detailing the efforts of UPS to get...

– Sandwichman @ Econospeak The Unbearable Tightness of Peaking Sandwichman came across a fascinating and disconcerting new dissertation, titled “Carbon Purgatory: The Dysfunctional Political Economy of Oil During the Renewable Energy Transition” by Gabe Eckhouse. An adaptation of one of the chapters, dealing with fracking, was published in Geoforum in 2021 As some of you may know, the specter of Peak Oil was allegedly “vanquished” by the...

Weekly Indicators for January 30 – February 3 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While yesterday’s blockbuster jobs report dominated the monthly reports, several important weekly reports, notably the 4 week average of retail sales as measured by Redbook, and the temporary Staffing Index, weakened further to new post-pandemic lows. On the other hand, January tax withholding payments had...

My daughter gave me Emma Southon’s book “A fatal thing happened on the way to the forum” for Christmas. Apart from my longtime interest in history, there was a particular reason for this choice. Rebecca took five years of Latin in middle school and high school. She got a 5 on the Latin AP exam, which entitled her to college credit, although I’m not sure whether Colorado State awarded that credit on her transcript. Along the way, she learned 33 words...

I have been negligent and have not followed up on Steve Hutkin’s “Save The Post Office” commentaries. There is a lot going on at the USPS. Appointing two new postal governors to the USPS board is an important issue. Important to the nation if it is ever going to wrestle the USPS away from Louis DeJoy and Corporate interests such as UPS, FedEx, etc. Is Biden still considering appointing two new postal governors? Save the Post Office, Steve...