The Angry Bear

Review of “Demagogue”“Demagogue: The life and long shadow of Senator Joe McCarthy” by Larry Tye is a particularly timely read as the nation continues in the grip of another political bully, Donald Trump. The parallels in their methods are striking and the degree to which McCarthy held the nation in thrall during the 1950s mirrors the fealty of the Trumpenproletariat today. We know how the McCarthy story ended, and it offers hope that the nation will...

Herd consolidation seems to be the main point being plugged right now as the total herd population of beef cattle is dropping and will continue to drop well into next year. This mirrors the 2014 cattle year where we had a steep downturn in total US herd. Next year will be more of the same with a general degradation of total population. Here are the factors: Severe drought has brought about pasture shortages. Lack of rain in the western parts...

September Update: “COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate”| ACA Signups, Charles Gaba As always, here’s my (Charles Gaba) methodology: County-level 2020 Population data via U.S. Census Bureau’s 2020 CensusCounty-level 2020 Trump vote data via each state’s Election Commission or Secretary of State websitesCounty-level Case & Death data via Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science & Engineering for 47...

Chandra Childers at Economic Policy Institute reports on household income: “Household incomes have fallen since 2019 despite growth in workers’ earnings“ “On Thursday, the U.S. Census Bureau released 2021 household income and household earnings data for states from the American Community Survey (ACS). National averages hide the wide disparities experienced by workers and families across states while state-level data can help us understand how...

August existing home sales: confirmation that house prices have peaked Existing home sale by themselves are not that important economically, since there is a mere transfer in ownership, rather than a complete build. But they can help verify turning points, and in this case very importantly as to prices. But first, sales declined slightly (-2,000) to 4.80 million annualized. This is the lowest seasonally adjusted monthly number since June 2020,...

For Senator Mitch McConnell the most important thing in the world is for him to be Senate Majority Leader; because, as Senate Majority Leader, Sen. McConnell has a lot of power. In Washington DC, power is a commodity. Being Senate Majority Leader pays well. For McConnell to be Leader, he needs to raise a lot of money for republican senatorial candidates. If he raises money for a candidate’s campaign and the candidate wins, the candidate owes...

Healthcare and Politics are the heavy hitters tonight. I always feel like I missed something. Feel free to add articles to this in comments. I have a post to complete on the costs and prices on Pharma. You know there is a difference. Politicians usually talk about one or the other. A while back Germany was wondering if the pharma companies would accept their new pharma schedules. It is a reasonable doubt. How would one know if they did not understand...

Housing: permits and average starts decline, while construction remains at peak The data on housing construction this month was mixed. While starts rose, their 3 month average, at 1.511 million annualized, was the lowest since September through November 2020. Meanwhile total and single family permits both declined, both to the lowest since June 2020: This year I’ve also been looking at the record number of housing units that had permits, but...

David Zetland writes on “replacement theory” (originally published at One Handed Economist) Replacement theory in the US “Replacement theory” is a semi-racist, often-hysterical belief that — in the US — White Christians will be “replaced” by others. The racist part arises from the vapid conception of “race” and/or “White” which rests on no biological or scientific facts. As anyone can tell you, every country (or tribe or community) has its...

The Martha Vineyard pamphlet given to legal Venezuelan immigrants in the US. Florida (as if you did not know where he rules!) Governor DeSantis’s motive was to convince the immigrants to get on the plane in Texas (a suburb of Florida) to go to paradise another city where they could get jobs, cash for eight months, vocational skill training, etc. They were not told the location of this paradise. “Just hop on the bus, we don’t need to discuss much....