The Angry Bear

Initial claims continue in range; why they will give us a lead on when the Sahm rule for recessions may be triggered Initial claims ticked up 2,000 last week to 216,000. The 4 week moving average declined 6,250 to 221,750. Continued claims, with a one week delay, declined 6,000 to 1.670 million: To state the obvious continued good news, it remains the case that almost nobody is getting laid off.  Also continued good news is that claims, and...

From the Washington Post comes this map of temperatures over much of North America, a result of the artic blast and winter storm begun today, Thursday. In the Boston area rain is expected. The temperature tonight actually is rising from from about 43 degrees F. to the low 50’s F. , to continue throughout Friday, and then eventually falls to 12 degrees F. by Saturday morning. How is your weather? ...

A recent paper finds that drivers who are not vaccinated against COVID are substantially more likely to be involved in serious auto accidents than vaccinated drivers. In response, Jay Bhattacharya, an author of the Great Barrington Declaration and a prominent opponent of lockdowns and vaccine mandates, tweeted that the study “should not be used by automobile insurers as a basis to discriminate against the unvaxxed.” Well, why not?  One argument...

November existing home sales: prices have unequivocally turned down  – by New Deal democrat Existing home sales do not have much actual economic impact, since the primary economic activity generated by housing is the construction. But they do help tell us a great deal about pricing. For the record, sales continued their relentless decline this year, down to 4.09 million on an annualized basis, down almost 1/3rd from their recent February...

by David Zetland (originally published at The one-handed economist) I’m not shy about criticizing the weakest elements of economics (there are many), so it’s sometimes a good idea to remind myself (and you!) of the strengths of economics, i.e., those characteristics that make it useful. Here’s an example based on a test-question I just asked: You are a baker facing higher energy (natural gas) prices. Higher prices result from (choose one...

Another blast from the past before I get into some newer information. It is still very relevant. It lays a foundation for other work I intend to do. This should come as no surprise as I have written on the topic of Healthcare Costs and Its Drivers before. In particular, the overriding statistic from an earlier post was 50% of the increase in healthcare costs was due solely to price increases between 1996 and 2013 (JAMA, Factors Associated With...

This Life: faith, work, and free time, part two At the beginning of this year, I posted a response to Martin Hägglund’s This Life: Secular faith and spiritual freedom. In October I learned of a conference next May in Belgium at which Hägglund will be one of the keynote speakers. So I submitted an abstract to present a paper. When it came time to start working on a draft for the conference, I remembered my blog post and it formed the core for...

I am not sure if you experienced similar. A year ago getting Delta Airlines customer service on the line took hours. And if you left a phone number, they never called back. I found calling them when they first opened up seemed to work. 6 AM? One time we even got better seats. Getting airline help is an issue. Minnesota is moving forward with their version of single payer for residents and those who work in Minnesota. It will be interesting to see...

November housing permits and starts: the biggest news is not in the headlines  – by New Deal democrat The report on housing construction for November was very much a tale of two very different trends – and the most important one will almost certainly be under-reported. Housing permits issued declined to 1.342 million annualized, the lowest number since June 2020, and before the pandemic the lowest since July 2019. The even more reliable...