The Angry Bear

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....

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...