The Angry Bear

Housing is expensive here in East Providence. It’s even more expensive in Boston, an hour from here. Some folks live in Rhode Island and commute to Boston. When we were house-hunting in the Providence area in the Spring of ’22, the real estate market was white hot. We were out-bid on three offers. Making an inspection a condition was an automatic reject. In the event, the house we bought never even went on the market.Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin...

– by Sara B. Heller and Max Kapustin Econofact, November 2022 Let me be clear on the topic before you read the article. The full text is: “In a research  paper with colleagues, we find that it is possible by using data such as arrest and victimization records that cities already collect, to accurately identify specific people at high risk of being shot without introducing the kinds of racial bias that are of most concern in algorithmic...

– by New Deal democrat Much of the data that is being released, like yesterday’s jobless claims data, has to be viewed with an asterisk after it, because of hurricane disruptions. As an addendum to yesterday’s industrial production report, I failed to mention that the BEA that “the effects of two hurricanes subtracted an estimated 0.3 percent” from the total. Even with that increase, production would have been unchanged and manufacturing...

I’m reading an article about Kamala Harris in the October 21st New Yorker. This paragraph caught my eye:“When Harris talks of the origins of her interest in government, she lingers on a moment from her time in Montreal: a friend from Westmount High, Wanda Kagan, was being physically and sexually abused at home, and Harris’s mother took her in. “A big part of the reason I wanted to be a prosecutor was to protect people like her,” Harris has said. In...

Decoding Medicare Advantage by Andrew Sprung xpostfactoid Can STAT’s exposure of UHC’s exhortations to goose Medicare Advantage enrollees’ risk scores spur action to reduce MA overpayment? Load these Codes It is beyond reasonable doubt that the federal government’s payments to Medicare Advantage plans are grossly inflated by the plans’ gaming of the program’s risk adjustment system, designed to deter plans from cherry-picking health...

– by R.J. Sigmund Most of the demographic indicators of this summer’s Covid wave continued to recede rapidly in this week’s reports, and wastewater levels of the virus, the most definitive indicator of infections, have fallen to “low.” Among the CDC’s “early indicators” “test positivity”, or the percentage of tests for Covid that were positive, fell to 7.7% during the week ending October 5th, down from 9.5% positive during the week ending...

– by New Deal democrat A periodic reminder, real retail sales is one of my favorite economic indicators, because it tells us so much about the state of the consumer, and since consumption leads employment, it is a short leading indicator for that as well. In September retail sales in August rose 0.4% on a nominal basis. After adjusting for inflation, they rose 0.3%. The below graph norms both real retail sales (dark blue) and the similar...

Current Release October 17, 2024 Market Groups The major market groups posted mixed results in September. Among consumer goods, the production of durables decreased 0.7 percent. In contrast, the index for nondurables increased 0.5 percent, boosted by a 1.7 percent increase in energy goods. The output of business equipment declined 3.5 percent in September, weighed down by a sharp drop of 14.2 percent in the production of transit equipment...

 – by New Deal democrat Before I get to the (relatively) good news in retail sales, let’s take a look at the bad news from industrial production. On a monthly basis, production declined -0.3%. Manufacturing declined -0.4%. There were also downward revisions to last month. Both of these continue to slowly fade from their 2022 peak: On a YoY basis, production is down -0.6%, and manufacturing production is down -0.4%: For all intents...

by Steve Roth Originally posted at Wealth Economics Please excuse two paragraphs of a personal insight up front here. I think it’s pertinent. What follows are some serious research results, just out, that I think are hugely revealing about the ways of the (economic) world. I had a visit from an old and good friend recently: dad of one of my kids’ best childhood friends, and in more recent years a business/investing colleague. We both had...