The Angry Bear

DETROIT – Actually this is Grand Rapids, MI home of the Western District Michigan Federal Court. The historic Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer kidnap plot trial ended with no convictions Friday,  delivering a blow to the government as it failed to convince a jury that four men were domestic terrorists determined to harm the governor because of her COVID-19 restrictions. AB: Not sure if I would call this historic. Several times and under their...

The avian influenza does not seem to be letting up with multiple states reporting cases, including Texas. Here is the current map of reported cases. The USDA and USGS have been doing a good job of tracking and confirming cases through APHIS, and the surprising news that has all of us in the poultry business worried is that this is a highly pathogenic virus that is transmitted through wild birds and domestic alike. Sparrows, crows, cardinals and...

Benchmark revisions, oh my! Four week average of jobless claims makes all-time 55 year series low The DoL made revisions to the last five years of jobless claims, in particular revising the seasonal adjustments, and the differences are eye-popping. Last week initial claims (blue) were reported at 202,000. With the revisions, they are now 171,000! This week they declined -5,000 from that revised figure to 166,000, tying the revised number from...

Just a collection of articles which come to my email box from various sources. Many of them I read and just let go by. Posted snippets of them to attract interest. Some I write about such as Student Loans, Healthcare, etc. “Mask-Wearing Will Continue in Some Situations: Polls,” MedScape Even as the COVID-19 threat seems to be easing, more than half of doctors and nurses expect to continue wearing face masks while shopping in grocery and...

Scenes from the March jobs report; and the Great Resignation as “Take This Job and Shove It!”  It’s been a little while since I took a more in-depth look at the jobs market, so let’s take a look. As I wrote last Friday, we are at historic lows in both the unemployment and underemployment rates. In the graphs below, the current values of each are normed to zero for easy comparison: Historically few people are involuntarily unemployed....

Manufacturing positive, but no longer red hot; inflation-adjusted construction spending is flat In addition to the jobs report, Friday gave us updates on manufacturing and construction. The ISM manufacturing index, and especially its new orders subindex, is an important short leading indicator for the production sector. While the index remained positive, its leading new orders component stumbled. In March the index declined from 58.6 to...

Catching up with Steve Hutkins at Save the Post Office. The removal of US Blue Mail Collection boxes is controversial especially during an election year. It forces people to find other place to mail letters, bills, ballots, etc. Back in 2020, there was quite a bit of conversation going on about such happening and a slowing down of postal service once things were mailed. I do know it takes a day or so longer for First Class mail to get to the west...

As announced by the U.S. Department of Education April 6th: “An extension of the pause on student loan repayment, interest, and collections has been made through August 31, 2022. This is done to allow for the economy to continue to improve and COVID cases continue to decline. President Biden has made clear the continuing need to respond to the pandemic and its economic consequences, as well as to allow for the responsible phase-down of pandemic...

You ever have those facts wedged in your mind so deep that you feel that it is the bottom of your foot truth? That full contact, no holds barred, yes I know this? It happens to most of us. And recently me. A few days ago I wrote about the strata of agricultural land use with a bit of this nonsense: For context, about 425 million acres is total farmland in the US, with three quarters going to direct croppage and the last quarter to livestock and...