The Angry Bear

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. One measure of how the Russia-Ukraine war has been “normalized” globally, is that industrial commodity prices have declined sharply – on the order of 25% – in the past two weeks, taking back their entire sharp increase at the start of hostilities. Meanwhile, the Treasury yield curve has “normalized” somewhat more...

I haven’t commented on rumors about Putin’s health.  Lots of people have reasons to spread disinformation, and I have no way of seeing through the smoke.  Still, the rumors are out there.  What should we make of this? Sounds like the Ukrainians are expecting more of this, and plan to try and methodically destroy the new formations. The most interesting interview Ive seen this week is this one by the head of Ukrainian DoD intelligence....

The Malthusianism Of Benjamin Franklin And The Abortion Issue, Econospeak, Barkley Rosser Thomas Robert Malthus may well have been the least favorite economist of Karl Marx. Basically, Marx did not like him because he saw Malthus as blaming poverty on the poor themselves, their inevitable sinfulness that led them to constantly reproduce themselves excessively when things started to get better, thus leading to population pressing against the means...

New jobless claims rise slightly, but continuing claims make another 50+ year low, May 12, 2022  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 1,000 to 203,000, continuing above the recent 50+ year low of 166,000 set in March. The 4 week average also rose by 4,250 to 192,750, compared with the all-time low of 170,500 set five weeks ago. On the other hand, continuing claims declined -44,000 to 1,343,000, yet another new 50 year low (but...

Having run a warehouse for a major $12 billion automotive component corporation, I can relate to container shipping globally. We shipped full containers to a number of countries on a weekly and monthly basis. This was dependent upon production demand. Reporting good news, a trend, and extreme profits? Peak of container shipping’s epic boom already passed? Hapag-Lloyd: The fifth-largest container line sees signs the market peaked back in the...

Weekly Indicators for May 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. One measure of how the Russia-Ukraine war has been “normalized” globally, is that industrial commodity prices have declined sharply – on the order of 25% – in the past two weeks, taking back their entire sharp increase at the start of hostilities. Meanwhile, the Treasury yield curve has “normalized” somewhat more in...

Amazing Republicans are trying to skew the peaceful (so far) protests of pro-choice consisting mostly of women as being violent. Not that they never get angry . . . they can and will. They are not happy with SCOTUS and are making it known peacefully. Cruz and others are trying to make this into something else similar to what Cruz was supporting January 6, 2021. Waiting on V.P. Pence Ted Cruz smugly sitting in the capitol building January 6th...

With the Fed already having begun to “stomp on the brakes,” inflation is still running very hot As promised, here is my second post on the April CPI number. The YoY advance in consumer prices, +8.3%, is down from last month’s 8.6%, which was the highest 12 month rate since 1981. As I suggested last month, “the spike in gas prices may be – to use a recently dreaded word – transitory,” since gas prices had declined 5% month over month at the time...

Andrew writes on healthcare, mostly the PPACA plan and the various metal plans, and the latest gig (ARPA) resulting in lower costs for anyone under 250% FPL and lower costs for anyone higher than 400% FPL. All made possible due to Biden and Democrat’s American Rescue Plan Act of 2021. It will expire EOY 2022 and I doubt Manchin will help with it. Without it and other aid, This all could have been a 2008 Redux. Mostly, what you will catch me...

Real wages unchanged, real aggregate payrolls rose slightly in April Consumer inflation for April was +0.3%, the lowest monthly advance since last August. The number was helped by a big decline in energy prices, down -2.7% for the month, and also by used cars, down -0.4% for the month. In this post I’ll report on the impact on wages. I’ll put up a separate post with more general comments later. Since nominal nonsupervisory wages rose 0.4% in...