The Angry Bear

Commenter and Blogger RJS at Market Watch 666 Retail Sales Increased by 0.7% in September after July and August Sales were Revised Higher Seasonally adjusted retail sales rose 0.7% in September after retail sales for July and August were revised higher . . . the Advance Retail Sales Report for September (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales totaled $625.4 billion during the month,...

Vaccine hesitancy is a serious problem.  It is killing people and prolonging the social and economic costs of the pandemic.  One possible policy response is to make vaccination mandatory, at least in certain contexts (hospitals, schools, interstate transportation, etc.).  Libertarians frequently object to vaccine mandates in uncompromising terms.  They exaggerate the risk of vaccine side effects.  They insist on individual liberty while...

Author, Farmer, and Economist Michael Smith briefly talking returns to Cattle Ranchers and profits to meat processors and retail. The beef industry is under fire, we’ve been seeing this for years. We first saw where Smithfield has taken over whole towns for pork production, vertically integrating as much as possible, even to take a cut of the feed grain market in those towns. This provides the blueprint for a bigger industry, beef. Matt...

Continuing the conversation concerning Medicare and Medicare Advantage programs – Value Added Healthcare. Background Kip Sullivan and I have had a running dialogue on Value Added (VA) healthcare. This usually starts up with my asking a question, giving my doubts on certain topics, and a back and forth in an exchange of emails. I have done this before with others, mining their knowledge banks. The likes of which Value Added (VA) is being...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for October 11 – 15 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There are a couple of signs that the inflationary surge may be at or just past its peak, mainly in that the costs for ship transportation, which have been soaring for months, have stopped doing so and in one case have reversed. Meanwhile, on the production side, some commodity costs are still increasing sharply. As...

Another strong month for real retail sales growth; to cope, employers are going to have to sweeten the pot to add employees Real retail sales, perhaps my favorite monthly economic indicator since they tell us so much about average consumer behavior, and are also a good short leading indicator for jobs, were reported this morning for September, and they were positive. Nominally retail sales increased +0.7%, after a +0.2% upward revision to +0.9%...

Jobless claims: a renewed downward trend? Jobless claims declined 36,000 this week to 293,000, another pandemic low. The 4 week average also declined 10,500 to 334,500, also another pandemic low: With the exception of the last few years of the last expansion, this level of weekly initial claims would be very low for any point in the last 50 years, and the 4 week average would be average for an expansion: Continuing claims...

Articles from my Inbox as usual. There is a common thread or threads here of private equity getting more involved. It is bad enough with ACOs buying up medical facilities. We are losing control of healthcare. “Insurers are taking decisions out of the hands of physicians, says ortho surgeon,” beckersasc.com Dr. Grant Shifflett: I don’t want to paint a bleak picture, but I look at this in terms of the voice we have as physicians. And it seems...

According to American libertarians, the dangers of covid authoritarianism are clearly on display in Australia.  We’ve looked at some of these claims before.  Here is some additional context from Van Badham, writing in today’s New York Times: Last week, the myth of our enslavement propelled aspirational allies into the streets. In the United States,  Poland  and Britain, distinctly non-Australian protesters assembled outside Australian diplomatic...