The Angry Bear

Why people stay after local economies collapse − a story of home among the ghosts of shuttered steel mills by Tracy Walsh The Conversation It was midday on a Saturday, and Simonetta led me from the open front door of her home in southeast Chicago to her sitting room and settled next to her husband, Christopher, on the couch. In the 1980s, Christopher had worked a few blocks away at U.S. Steel South Works, earning three times the minimum...

Joyce Vance at Civil Discourse on Jack Smith’s New Approach. Since trump now has certain immunities due to being a former pres, pres, president as declared by SCOTUS. Took a bit to call trump a president. Jack Smith takes a different approach in indicting trump as citizen trump. He carefully avoids reference to the office of president. This is going to be interesting as this new indictment will be appealed. In a Tuesday afternoon surprise,...

Analyzing Trump’s potential behavior in a debate with Kamala Harris. The smart plan or move would be to allow Trump to babble all he wants to and just remain the calm one. The adult in the room giving reasoned answers to the country’s needs. Don’t give him the room to suck one into his style of debate. Letters from an American by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson The point that is currently holding up plans for ABC’s September 10 presidential...

by Guest Economist Joseph Joyce Capital Ebbs and Flows The disruption of the global economy caused by the COVID pandemic in 2020 had begun to be overcome when the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 led to new fissures. Sanctions were placed by the United States and European nations on trade and capital transactions with Russia. Before the pandemic, tariffs and other trade measures had been imposed by the  United States and China on each other,...

Repeat home sale indexes show continued deceleration in house price inflation, more comfort room for Fed to cut rates  – by New Deal democrat This morning, we got the repeat home sales price data from the FHFA and Case Shiller. And the news was good, especially in the slightly leading FHFA Index. This is of heightened importance compared with normal historical times. That’s because to reiterate, my focus is looking for any movement towards...

Americans hate high prices, and Kamala Harris says she plans to combat them by banning price gouging in food and groceries. But, depending on what form it takes, economists could hate her plan. Vice President Harris, who will formally accept her party’s nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, has laid the blame for high food prices at the feet of businesses. Surveys conducted by Harvard University economist Stefanie...

Yes, it is true. That is only part of the story. There is more to it as to why the FTC is interfering. I am surprised there is not more “current” information on Cerberus and Apollo Global involvement in the Kroger-Albertsons merger. I keep reading the same blathering over and over. $25 billion at play here. And both private equity guys are out to break the bank. Kroger is already threating to go to SCOTUS because the FTC’s Lina M. Khan is...

The Arizona secretary of state’s office recently certified 577,971 signatures which is far above the number required to put the question of Abortion before voters. PHOENIX (AP) — Voters in Arizona will be able to decide in November whether they want to protect the right to an abortion in their state constitution. The Arizona Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that a 200-word summary that abortion advocates used to collect signatures for a ballot...

The COVID-19 pandemic had a dramatic effect on the US economy that was mitigated by the rapid development and deployment of COVID vaccines. I was a subject in the Moderna Phase III clinical trial of their RNA vaccine, and eventually have had six injections.The well-established benefit of COVID vaccination is that it will keep you out of the ED and the morgue. But what about “long COVID,” the post-acute sequelae of COVID infection that can last for...

According to Word Press this article by EPI can be read in 7 minutes. It is not a difficult read and gives quite a bit of information. Wage growth strongest for low-wage workers between 2019 and 2023 In this analysis, we divide the wage distribution into roughly five groups to uncover recent wage trends at different wage levels.  Figure A displays wage growth at the 10th percentile (“low-wage”), the average of the 20th–40th percentiles...