The Angry Bear

Without efforts to control human-caused global warming, we should consider the current extremes a preview of coming attractions.  While the mega drought continues in the west and southwest:  Although the 2021 summer monsoon was good – well above average in some places – it was not enough to counter the cumulative shortfalls of the preceding years. The cumulative precipitation for the 20-month period was the lowest on record, dating back to...

A note on producer prices and (possibly) cooling inflation One point I make from time to time is that, with seasonally adjusted data, YoY comparisons can miss, or at least lag, turning points. We *may* have such a situation developing with producer prices as evidenced by this morning’s report (Feb. 15). On a YoY basis, producer prices for finished goods (red in the graph below) are up 12.5%, while commodity prices are up 19.3%. Consumer...

The current trend in both cases and deaths in the US has me the most hopeful I have been in over 6 months. Here’s why. Nationwide, cases have declined to 150,000, only 30,000 above their level just before The Omicron wave started, and about 10,000 less than their Delta peak: The Omicron wave has been almost completely symmetrical. Cases started to rise exponentially roughly on December 15. They peaked about 4.5 weeks later. Now, about 4.5...

There has been quite a lot of news over the past few years regarding agriculture specific to governmental assistance, from providing crop subsidies during the Trump Trade War to the Biden Administrations attempt to tamp down inflation via meat processing capacity increases, as well as an attempt to revive a few ideas that had been tabled by previous administrations. The largest focus for the USDA is without a doubt the SNAP food assistance program...

Real Wages Grew During Two Years of COVID-19 After Controlling for Workforce Composition Sean Howard, Robert Rich and Joseph Tracy February 15, 2022 I propose you just read it. They are quite convincing. The bottom line is that real wages increased last year (the top line is nominal wages and yes I like to take figures of speech literally) This is interesting for two reasons. First, the vast majority of our fellow citizens would...

The Western U.S. and northern Mexico are experiencing their driest period in at least 1,200 years, according to the new study, published in the journal Nature Climate Change. The last comparable — though not as severe — multidecade megadrought occurred in the 1500s, when the West was still largely inhabited by Native American tribes. NPR reminds us that there is still a significant drought happening in large parts of the US in its reporting on...

RJS, Focus on Fracking; Global oil shortage at 440,000 barrels per day in January as OPEC’s output falls 749,000 barrels per day short; 2021’s oil shortage revised to 1.5 million barrels per day OPEC’s January Oil Market Report Thursday of the past week saw the release of OPEC’s February Oil Market Report, which includes details on OPEC & global oil data for January, and hence it gives us a picture of the global oil supply & demand...

Bloomberg News reports an outbreak in Kentucky and Virginia after initial outbreak discovered at Indiana facility last week. Avian flu is nothing new, and as we continue to keep large quantities of poultry in ever increasing numbers in concentrated operations around the poultry processors, the occurrences are likely to become more severe and often. This is mostly because commercial poultry operations look like this: The amount of birds grown...

The return of the “Oil Choke Collar”! For the first five years after the end of the Great Recession, one of the staples of my analysis was the concept of the “oil choke collar.” By that I meant that typically recessions had occurred after there was a sudden and sharp upward spike in the cost of gas, inflicting such pain that consumers cut back drastically on other spending – causing a prompt economic downturn. But what if, instead, gas prices rose...