The Angry Bear

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog As per usual, real retail sales is one of my favorite indicators, because it gives so much information about the consumer, and since consumption leads employment, it helps forecast the trend in the latter as well. And the news this morning was good, as nominally retail sales increased 0.7% in March, while February’s number was revised higher by 0.3% to 0.9%. After accounting for 0.4% inflation in...

I’m an investor, not a gambler, so I don’t own cryptocurrency, NFTs or shares in “Truth” Social. So the news that investors in DJT are being taken to the cleaners doesn’t faze me. “Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 15% on Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock.“Trump Media’s dramatic slide came as Donald Trump sat in a Manhattan courtroom for the start of his criminal trial on hush money-related charges....

OK, Tesla isn’t Bitcoin and it isn’t Trump’s Pravda Social, but: “Tesla announced to Gigafactory Texas employees that it will shorten Cybertruck production shift amid rumors that it is preparing a round of layoffs.“We received several reports today from Tesla employees hearing rumors of an important round of layoffs happening this week at the company.“Some of them are talking about layoffs as high as 20% of the workforce, which would mean tens of...

George Stephanopoulos asked New Hampshire governor Chris Sununu  by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American This Week, host George Stephanopoulos, “Just to sum up,” “You support [Trump] for president even if he’s convicted in [the] classified documents [case]. You support him for president even though you believe he contributed to an insurrection. You support him for president even though you believe he’s lying about the...

Medicaid Renewals Of the people retaining Medicaid Coverage as of April 11, 2024 . . . Fifty-nine percent were renewed on an ex parte basis while 41% were renewed through a renewal form, though rates varied by state. Federal rules require states to first try to complete administrative (or “ex parte”) renewals by verifying ongoing eligibility through available data sources. Sources such as state wage databases. Doing this before they send a...

by KFF Pulled together data from KFF to get an idea of what is happening with US healthcare. Big issue is people do not know. Another issue is state’s resistance to enrolling people. Hope this helps . . . Recent data on monthly Medicaid disenrollments, renewals, overall enrollment and other key indicators. Figure 1 above . . . At least 20,104,000 Medicaid enrollees have been disenrolled as of April 11, 2024, based on the most...

Originally, I put this into print November 2013. I took from many sources to complete it. I think it meshes well and still stands the test of time. The student loan issues and debt are still in existence. The debt owed is fare larger now with much of it being accumulated interest on principle. The cause of much of this is largely due to Biden’s policies before he became President up though 2005. The numbers for those having student loans is far...

Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Letters from an American When Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida addressed a joint meeting of Congress today, he tried to remind lawmakers of who Americans are. “The U.S. shaped the international order in the postwar world through economic, diplomatic, military, and technological power,” he reminded them. “It championed freedom and democracy. It encouraged the stability and prosperity of nations, including...

Robert Reich Roberts Substack Robert Reich’s update on the upcoming criminal trial on election interference. ~~~~~~~~ Trump wants you to think that all he did was try to cover up a sexual affair. Wrong. Trump’s first criminal trial, the first criminal trial of a former president, ever — is scheduled to begin Monday. The 34-count business falsification case may be the only case against Trump to reach a verdict before the November...

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. Long Lead Indicator Remain Unchanged. Short Lead Indicators show Improvement. Coincidental Indicators suggest a stable consumer and taxpayer environment for 2024. There has been a lot of churn in both the short leading and coincident indicators in the past few weeks, but the overall tone is towards a more positive economic environment....