The Angry Bear

Putin Supporters In US Becoming Desperate  Latest reports have after Putin annexed four oblasts in Ukraine the Ukrainian military making numerous gains in several of those and simply on a major roll that seems very unlikely to be stopped or even slowed down all that much, short of Putin using nuclear weapons. First Lyman was taken, now the last town the Russians held in Kharkiv oblast was taken. Ukrainian troops appear to be closing fast on both...

Six billion. I have written and rewritten the first line of this over and over and over again. Six billion. That is the amount of current US dollars American farmers have to come up with this year as fertilizer prices hit highs not seen since 2008, on top of higher prices last year. The difference is that in 2008 we had a financial meltdown, a run on energy markets, and global calamity. This year, we have supply crunches due to war, restrictions,...

Some seem to think so. A recent paper by Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Jason L. Schwartz appears to backup this claim up with some numbers exclusively of their own. “Excess Covid Death Rates for Republicans and Democrats During the COVID-19 Pandemic,” NBER, © 2022 by Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Jason L. Schwartz “Political affiliation has emerged as a potential risk factor for COVID-19, amid evidence that...

Coronavirus dashboard for October 5: An autumn lull as COVID-19 evolves towards seasonal endemicity  – by New Deal democrat Back in August I highlighted some epidemiological work by Trevor Bedford about what endemic COVID is likely to look like, based on the rate of mutations and the period of time that previous infection makes a recovered person resistant to re-infection. Here’s his graph: He indicated that it “illustrate[s] a scenario...

Poor Puerto Rico, she is now two hurricanes behind. Understandably so, since, of late, five-hundred-year hurricanes, floods, and droughts, …., have been coming every five years or so. Another one strikes before we can recover from the previous. And, it will only get worse. With each season, we will be getting further, and further behind. In Florida alone, $100 Billion in damages from Ian. How much would it cost to build buildings, infrastructure, …,...

Once again, automotive is building inventory dues to parts shortages. Semiconductors appear to be an issue again or the issue never went away. Much of this is due to automotive OEMs trying to drive parts cost down to the tiers. Many of them are running tight budgets due to the OEMs. They will not hold inventory unless the OEMs commit to it. The other side of this being Ford splitting it business into two parts, traditional fuel vehicles and Electric...

August JOLTS report: the game of reverse musical chairs in the jobs market is ending  – by New Deal democrat Since early this year I’ve been making the point that, because of the pandemic, there have been several million fewer persons looking for work, leaving a huge number of unfilled job vacancies, particularly in the face of a roughly 10% higher jump in demand. This has given employees the upper hand, as there are almost always higher...

One Handed Economist David Zetland reviews a review by The Economist of the book Superabundance. I admit I did not read the book or even scan it. I will do so later when I have some time to do so. The subtitle kind of gives it away as it promotes (“The Story of) Population Growth, Innovation and Human Flourishing on an Infinitely Bountiful Planet.” In the US there is a lot of noise about legal immigrants coming to the US. Our replacement rate has...

September manufacturing new orders and August construction spending both turn down  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we begin another month and another quarter with important manufacturing and construction data. The ISM manufacturing index has a very long and reliable history. Going back almost 75 years, the new orders index has always fallen below 50 within 6 months before a recession, and in three cases did not actually cross the line...