The Angry Bear

Europe is facing far more energy issues than what the US has faced. We moan about increase gasoline prices which still have not reached the height of them in 2008 when inflation is taken into consideration. David touches upon considerations to be taken in determining a solution. “Price gouging or shortage. Choose one.” – The one-handed economist, David Zetland I’m a political-economist from California who now lives in Amsterdam. During a...

Something interesting is happening in Texas. Agricultural Commissioner Sid Miller’s office has made a hard push on a marketing campaign for a renewed push for the Farm Fresh Network. Including a new website design. To catch you all up, the Farm Fresh Network was an initiative created by the Ag Commissioners office in 2015 that created an online network of local farms; a database of where, who, and what is being grown there, for the farmers as...

Jobless claims: put the recession on hold! (For now) For the last several months, there had been nearly a relentless slow increase in new jobless claims. That trend has broken, at least for now. Initial jobless claims declined by 2,000 to 243,000. The 4 week average, however, increased by 1,500 to 247,000.  Continuing claims declined -19,000 from their 4 month high water mark one week ago to 1,415,000: Claims had been trending almost...

First warnings — as usual I am writing on a topic discussed by many experts and I am not an expert. It is very often debated whether social welfare programs should be means tested (available only to people with low income or to people with low income and low wealth). An alternative is universal programs which are provided also to high income people (Medicare, Social Security old age and survivor pensions, K-12 public school, police protection, fire...

All the delays in getting to this point. I certainly was not fooled. Biden has an extensive history of believing students will renege on their loans, when there was no evidence to support his contention early-on. By early, let go back to 1978 (link is provided). I have added other Angry Bear links to build a foundation for my words. Amateur Socialist brought up a point at Naked Capitalism, which makes sense: Reading through the comments I’m...

Coronavirus dashboard for August 24: the post BA.5 wave respite In general, things are headed in the right direction for now in the pandemic. BIobot’s latest wastewater update from one week ago shows a 1/3rd decline in COVID particles nationwide. Here’s the regional breakdown: The West, spearheaded by CA, is down 50%, and the South 33%. The Midwest is down the least, perhaps due to the larger % of BA.4.6 in that area. Speaking of which,...

Agricultural news is slim, few and far between and usually relegated to only a few places. Mainstream media doesn’t have an audience for hard ag journalism, and ag journalism mostly preaches to the choir. Two great publications that I typically get information from are Successful Farming and AgWeb –. Both have varying degrees of in-depth coverage and decent reporting. I also subscribe to Successful Farming magazine. Usually, I can find topics...

In each of the coming years, we will see more floods destroy billions upon billions of dollars worth of property, crops, and infrastructure, and take hundreds of lives; more frequent, more deadly, tornadoes and hurricanes that will do the same; an increasing lack of water for crops cause food shortages and higher food prices, which will lead to more people going hungry, starving. Before long, in America, we will begin to see the lack of water cause...

Approvals for disability claims for Marine Veterans who were at Camp Lejeune between 1953 and1987 have dropped. This is in reference to disability claims filed with the Veterans Affairs Department for illnesses and disorders related to drinking and showering in contaminated water. I was stationed at Camp LeJeune on and off from 68 to 71 when I wasn’t overseas doing what I was asked to do. I am sure I was receiving a healthy dose of the water...