The Angry Bear

I am temporarily banned by Twitter for “Violating our rules against hateful conduct.” because of the attached tweet. I don’t know if “all men must die” was interpreted as a threat rather than a simple statement of fact by the algorithm or if calling deontological reasoning confused or fanatical was considered hate speach. Maybe I should have writtn “Valar Morgulis”. I do face a problem “By clicking Delete, you acknowledge that your Tweet...

It was this year; a question arose on the distribution of Covid tests to the states and why shouldn’t some states receive more tests than others. The question referenced Florida as one of those states. The question was put to Jen Psaki, White House Press Secretary. I admire Jen for the job she does as there is no mincing of words or delays in her responses to the adversarial reporters in the mix. Her answer was (my memory), the tests are...

Commenter and Blogger RJS, MarketWatch 666 There has been good coverage on the two jobs reports on AB already. I will post my takes on the trade deficit and construction spending below, both of which I estimate 4th quarter GDP impacts. I have high confidence in my GDP estimate for trade in goods, since the release includes inflation adjusted figures, but much less confidence in my construction estimate (which i note) because I use the producer...

One Man’s Toilet Water is Another Man’s Organic Farm, Michael Smith, Agricultural Economist and Farmer In my search to find sustainable sources of organic material to turn into viable soil modification vectors, I had been struggling to source material to add to the Padina sands that are in abundance in our lands. See, in late 2020 we had five tons of compost brought in all at once and we scattered it here and there. Before that we had brought...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for January 3 – 7 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Surprisingly, Omicron has not had any wide impact on the coincident data – at least not yet. On the other hand, the long leading forecast has become weaker, as interest rates have moved in the wrong direction. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment on where the economy is...

Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Geneticist In 1998, I went to Moscow for the first time to speak at a summer course sponsored by the Russian Academy. The week before I went, we were on vacation and one morning, I heard the NPR reporter say: “Today, the Ruble lost 100% of its value.” That, of course, would mean that the Russian currency was completely worthless. The next day, she apologized and explained that the Ruble...

December jobs report: more signs of real tightness, while new jobs added are (seasonally?) disappointing There were three big questions I had going into this jobs report:  1. whether the big decrease in new jobless claims to a half century low would translate to another big top line number in the jobs report 2. is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating? 3. Would last month’s “poor” 210,000 number of new jobs be revised higher?  The...

Classicalism and Revolution, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser  For those of you of a branch of Orthodox Christianity still using the Julian calendar, such as the Russian branch, Merry Christmas! I am tempted to comment on the situation in Kazakhstan, but I think we do not know what is going on there yet, so not now. Instead somehow I have been thinking about something that has something to do with economics, but I am going to look at it in other...

I have pointed out many times that libertarian critics of lockdowns and vaccine mandates often promote vaccine hesitancy by downplaying the effectiveness of vaccines and exaggerating their risks and the benefits of natural immunity. I had assumed that this anti-vax angle was a later addition to the libertarian playbook, a response to vaccine mandates and passports.  The Great Barrington Declaration, which was published before vaccines were...

Prof. Joel Eissenberg, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Geneticist The Nobel Laureate economist Paul Samuelson famously acknowledged in a Meet the Press interview: “Well when events change, I change my mind. What do you do?” This observation applies to the advice from medical authorities such as the CDC and WHO during the COVID pandemic. Some members of the public are fond of pillorying these agencies for having published...