The Angry Bear

Coronavirus dashboard for September 19: no, the pandemic is *not* over  – by New Deal democrat Contrary to the statement by President Biden last night, the coronavirus pandemic is *not* over. First, here’s the long term look at infectious particles in wastewater by Biobot, compared with confirmed cases: Levels of COVID in wastewater continue to be as high as at any point before last winter’s original Omicron onslaught. And confirmed...

Market consolidation is nowhere near revolutionary news these days, as we have seen meat processing plants loom ever larger. Sitting right outside of major or semi-major metropoles, freshly frozen stock of proteins are brought in at all hours of the day and night to sell at a meat retail counter in all large chain grocers around the country. This has more or less been the model since the 1980s where corporate consolidation, mergers, acquisitions, and...

If you believe railroads do not count much anymore in the American economy, you need to rethink your thought. For a major automotive company, I was coordinating shipments to and from Asia via container, rail, and ocean. It was not that hard if you understood the lead times, customs, shipping and rail, and the bottlenecks. Typically we would pick up or ship out of Long Beach or LA. Coming in to us would arrive by rail with the bottleneck being...

The Ukraine war spike in energy prices has completely unwound  – by New Deal democrat I plan on putting up a Coronavirus update later today, because there have been a few significant developments (No, the pandemic is *NOT* over) particularly as they relate to the next few months. Tomorrow and Wednesday, we get our first batch of monthly housing data. In the meantime, today let’s update the situation with energy prices. And here, the news is...

Alan Collinge at Student Loan Justice Org. is showcasing on Facebook various people who still have student loans even after the small loan relief. With these student loan holders, the ten or twenty thousand will go to fees, interest, and penalties as they exist or as rolled into loans. Very little (if it does) will touch the loan origination amount. The funds become gifts to the loan industry which originated the loan or the present holder of these...

In an earlier post, Steve Hutkins introduced Louis DeJoy’s new plan centralizing post offices in various locations calling them Sorting and Delivery Centers. Many mail delivery personnel routes would increase in size and routes would be further away and larger. The result could lead to delayed delivery and a further degeneration of service. The result would also include the closing of many neighborhood post offices which existed since Roosevelt if...

Lifted from notes by One handed economist David Zetland comes with this reminder about US life expectancy dropping. David goes further and gives the reasons for decreasing Life Expectancy. America, my increasingly ex-country, has lower life expectancy than 21 “peer” countries. This decline being due to a combination of death from Covid, cars, guns, and lifestyle. The first fact about Covid was sadly unsurprising: The coronavirus pandemic...

Weekly Indicators for September 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Gas prices have continued to decline, with almost the entire Ukraine war spike gone. Meanwhile Tuesday’s core CPI reading sent the bond market into a tizzy, with interest rates going back up to their highs. The decline in gas prices is good news for the immediate short term. But the increase in interest rates...

Sen. Lindsey Graham, SC has been busy as a cat trying to cover up his saying, “And I’ll say this: If there is a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information after the Clinton debacle … there will be riots in the street,” comment by saying several different things about what he was trying to say, when what he was really trying to do was bully the Justice Dept, the Democratic Party, the President, the Speaker of the House, the...