The Angry Bear

Rents decreasing, CPI slowly decreasing, and questions on whether any of this is due to the FED’s actions. Industrial production is still the same and gasoline prices have dropped. According to New Deal democrats’ analysis, real sales and real income have increased (still lower than they were one year ago), and payrolls have continued to increase but at a decelerating rate. Jobless claims have not yet reached the signal a recession point yet. If the...

Interesting dilemma for higher education. I had heard that some colleges were having issues attracting students to their campuses. The high tuition and a lack of funding in the form of scholarships, grants, awards, etc. have been an issue when they do not keep up with the costs of colleges. Another issue has crept up which I was not aware of till reading it at The one-handed economist. This is one of David’s selected articles featured in Interesting...

A brief overview of the current state of the economy  – by New Deal democrat This week we get the final most important data of 2022, with consumer prices tomorrow and industrial production and retail sales Thursday. The Fed will also be making its final rate hike decision of the year. Next week and the week after, the only data will be housing construction and prices, plus personal income and spending. So let’s take a look at few salient...

What caught my attention to the potential train strike was it not being clear as to why. No one source was explaining why train crews and other crafts were angry at the railroad companies. Doing some reading I came away with a better understanding. Aaron Gordon at Vice does an excellent depiction of the issues. Biden stance on this issue is very similar to the screwing over of Students with their student loans. He made certain the law would stop...

For some fifty years now, the question of how to get labor a fair share has been tantamount. Fact being, it was a problem from the beginning of the industrial age and even before. Union labor has never had leverage – the bosses don’t work for them. For the past 40-50 yrs, the bosses and the shareholders have operated with great reciprocity — management gets rewarded to the extent they reward the holders. Much of this rewards system has come at the...

“December 11, 2022, Letters from an American,” Prof. Heather Cox Richardson The Keystone Pipeline ruptured Wednesday night near a creek in northern Kansas, spilling what its operator, TC Energy, says is about 14,000 barrels of oil. This is equivalent to about 588,000 gallons (an Olympic swimming pool holds about 666,000 gallons). TC Energy says the leak is now contained. This is the largest land-based crude pipeline spill in the U.S. in nine...

Weekly Indicators for December 5 – 9 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The most noteworthy trend over the past several months has been the almost relentless deterioration in the YoY measures of consumer spending and employment. That trend continued last week. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the state of the economy, and reward me a...

Dale Coberly: Commentary on an article by Nancy Altman that I read yesterday: “Senator Warnock’s Re-Election Is a Victory for Social Security,” Portside, Nancy J. Altman. Nancy Altman wrote a pretty good book about Social Security [The Battle For Social Security (2005)] which I recommend. It’s readable and tells a story better than I can. In it, she explained the difference between worker paid insurance and welfare. And she told a story about...

Kind of beat today. I could not think of anything simple to write. What I have on my agenda to write requires some deep dives in the mechanisms of certain topics. I just don’t have the desire to dive deep. One issue I Have been closely watching Arizona Senator Primadonna Sinema who is just making things difficult. With 48 Dems and three independents, her ability to cause the twisting and turning of the entire Democratic party to appease her is...

“November producer prices: YoY measures mask recent sharp deceleration to mainly tolerable levels“  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices for November won’t be reported until next Tuesday, but this morning we got the upstream producer prices. The news was mainly good, although not good enough to likely dissuade the Fed from its current course of interest rate hikes. This is one of those cases where YoY measures give a false picture in...