The Angry Bear

With two feet of snow and 40-50 mph gusts of wind yesterday and wind chill temps of -15 degrees F.,, it was quite a day this Jan. 29. I am steadily working on digging out of the snow this night and into Sunday but did not lose power nor heat so feel fortunate. I think Dan is busy today too. Maybe an update later??? ...

Real personal income and spending both decline in December; no imminent worry but evidence of softening Nominal personal income rose 0.3% in December, while spending declined -0.6%. In real terms after inflation, personal income declined -0.1%, and personal consumption expenditures declined -1.0%. Nevertheless, both remain well above their pre-pandemic levels:  Here is what the same information looks like using May 2021 as a baseline, after...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for January 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While most of the chatter this past week was about inflation and the Fed raising interest rates, commodities got hot again, with oil making another 7 year high. This is both good and bad. It’s good because it shows that the global economy is really running hot. And it’s bad because, well, the global economy is...

Here is what Biden said about omicron in December: “We’re looking ahead to a brighter and happier December,” Mr. Biden said on Wednesday. He ticked through a list of actions by his administration that he said would help ensure fully stocked shelves in groceries and retailers through the holidays.Asked by reporters if he was worried that the Omicron variant, which officials announced later in the day had been detected in California, would threaten...

Real Q4 GDP completes the Boom of 2021, while long leading components warn of weaker 2022 to come Nominal GDP increased 6.9% in the 4th Quarter of 2021. After taking into account inflation, it increased 1.7% The last six economic quarters together have been the biggest economic Boom since 1983-84, as shown in the below graph showing YoY real GDP growth, minus the 5.5% of 2021, going all the way back to 1948: That’s pretty impressive....

Usually, discussions of decarbonizing energy production involve solar, wind, tidal and geothermal. But nuclear power generation doesn’t generate greenhouse gas (though the large amount of concrete in conventional nuclear power plants does). Nuclear power generation has a bad name after Three Mile Island, Chernobyl and Fukushima. While there is debate about whether the Three Mile Island and Fukushima accidents really endangered many lives, there’s no...

With seasonality over, it is clear that Omicron is responsible for increased layoffs With seasonality behind us, it is apparent that Omicron has resulted in increased layoffs. New claims declined 30,000 last week to 260,000 – still well above its pandemic low of 188,000 set early in December. The 4 week average of new claims increased 15,000 to 247,000: Continuing claims for jobless benefits rose for the second week in a row, by...

Thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for posting the qualifications of President Joe Biden’s pick (Ketanji Brown Jackson) to replace justice Stephen Breyer Justice at SCOTUS. I’ll (digby) just lay out the qualifications of the presumed front runner for the job: Ketanji Brown Jackson: Fifty-one year old Ketanji Jackson fulfills a lot of requirements for the establishment set. She has the same Ivy League credentials as the sitting justices, having...

by Joseph Joyce The Coming Wave of Debt Restructurings The news that the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates in 2022 sooner than anticipated was not surprising in view of the continued high rates of U.S. inflation. While U.S. asset prices are falling in response to the prospect of higher rates as well as a smaller Fed balance sheet, foreign markets are straining to decipher the spillover effects on their economies. But it is only a matter...

A few days ago, libertarian economist Donald Boudreaux published a photo of a woman sitting in an airport with some kind of bubble over her head.  He claimed that it illustrated how insanely risk averse some people are about COVID.  When some of his readers objected to this absurd propaganda, he responded as follows (my bold): You’re one of three people to object to my critical posting earlier today at my blog of a photo of a masked woman at the...