The Angry Bear

Sharp downturn in June housing starts confirms earlier negative signals from permits, sales, and mortgage applications For the last few months, I have highlighted the record number of housing units that had permits but had not yet been started, pointing out that it distorts the economic signal. Last month I closed with the statement: “The conundrum is whether the 50-year high backlog in units not yet started will delay the downturn until it...

Listening To Dmitri Shostakovich’s Music, Econospeak by Barkley Rosser  While recovering from a bout of Covid-19 (getting there), I have found myself listening to a lot of music by Soviet/Russian composer, Dmitri Shostakovich, mostly some of his 15 symphonies, which cover quite a range of styles from his first in 1926 to his last in 1971. I first heard Shostakovich 60 years ago in a junior high school music class when we were shown a film of a...

A note on inflation and whether the Fed should continue to raise rates – and whether it is “behind the curve” No important economic releases today (july 18), and almost no reporting by States as to COVID counts over the weekend, so let’s back up and take a look at something that’s been simmering on my intellectual back stove, so to speak: should the Fed be raising rates to combat this inflation? Has inflation already peaked? Or is the Fed way...

Many Democrats seem to view bipartisanship as a trap for naïve centrists.  This view is understandable given the way Republicans play political hardball.  But the right response to hardball is to use bipartisanship strategically, the way Republicans do, not to eschew it altogether. There are several advantages to pursuing bipartisan agreements.  First, many people hate political conflict in Washington.  They want bipartisanship.  And rightly or...

Most of the earth’s oxygen doesn’t come from forests or jungles but from ocean plankton. A recent survey found an alarming drop in Atlantic plankton levels likely due to increased atmospheric carbon dioxide and resulting ocean acidification.“Plankton is a blanket term for the billions of tiny sea organisms living close to the surface of the oceans, which are eaten by krill, small crustaceans, which are in turn eaten by fish and whales. No plankton,...

Pulled from Comments Section. Fred Dobbs Commentary NY Times magazine – July 17 Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End, NYT, David Marchese  Growth is the be-all and end-all of mainstream economic and political thinking. Without a continually rising G.D.P., we’re told, we risk social instability, declining standards of living and pretty much any hope of progress. But what about the counterintuitive possibility that...

June industrial production: second sharp monthly decline in manufacturing  – by New Deal democrat Industrial production declined -0.2% in June, and May was revised downward to unchanged. Even worse, manufacturing production declined -0.5% in June, and May was revised downward to -0.5% as well: This corresponds to the sharp deterioration in the regional Fed new orders indexes, and the ISM manufacturing new orders index we have seen during...

Tags: open thread

Real retail sales decline again slightly  – by New Deal democrat Nominal retail sales for the month of June rose 1.0%, and May was revised up by 0.2% from -0.3% to -0.1%. But since inflation was 1.3% in June and 1.0% in May, this makes the combined downturn in real retail sales -1.4% for the two months: YoY real retail sales is down -0.5%. In the past 75 years, a decline in real retail sales YoY has frequently – but not always – indicated a...

Just some ramblings of mine after looking at numbers. I do know Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania voter politics are changing. They are slowly becoming Democratic. People migrating to other states appear to be more liberal than the ones living there already. AZ is a purple state. That is the longer term outlook. It looks like Senator Kelly will win re-election. This comes after Republicans and SCOTUS have blown things up. We could use two more...