The Angry Bear

This is my second comment on Noah Smith’s substack. Today he wrote about something I should know about — macroeconomics. As always, I am amazed by Noah’s knowledge (it is his former former field of academic research). I don’t know for sure if his article is available only for subscribers, so I will try to summarize a little. His thoughts:”the U.S. is confronting another unexpected macroeconomic shock. Although the economy is doing great in terms...

“I shall Defend The Rights Of Parents” This is what new Virginia Governor Glenn Youngkin said when he made an executive order on the first day of his term to ban school systems from having mask mandates. Some systems will not go along, including that in Arlington and mine in the city of Harrisonburg. He claims to be defending the rights of parents, somehow not noting that he is violating the rights of parents who do not want their children be...

by New Deal democrat Short term economic forecast through mid year 2022 My short-term forecast for the first half of this year is up at Seeking Alpha. This forecast is based on the same system I have successfully used since before the Great Recession. Most forecasters, deliberately or not, cherry pick data points to fit a previously arrived at an intellectual point of view, and simply project the current trend ahead (or else default to...

RJS, MarketWatch 666 CPI Rose 0.5% in December on Higher Prices for Food, Shelter, Clothing, Vehicles, & Furniture; Annual Inflation at a 39 Year High The consumer price index rose 0.5% in December, as higher prices for food, clothing, shelter, new and used vehicles, airline fares, furniture, and laundry appliances and were partly offset by lower prices for energy, recreational goods, car and truck rentals, and for vehicle insurance . . ....

Donald Trump had a rally this weekend in Arizona: Former President Donald Trump on Saturday claimed that white people are being discriminated against and sent to the “back of the line” when it comes to receiving COVID-19 vaccines and treatment.Speaking during a rally in Florence, Arizona, Trump alleged that coronavirus vaccines and treatments are being unfairly “rationed” and withheld from white Americans in some states.“The left is now rationing...

“I Quit” Micheal Smith, The Ethics and Economics of Farmers Markets It is early, frosty mornings such as these where I would love to sleep past 6am, enjoy a cup of tea, watch the news and think about what is on the ‘has to get done list’.  These days I think about fence work, discing in compost and turning over weeds and then hitching up the kuelevator to hill up and top off planting rows for February planting. But alas, the market...

This podcast came to me by way of Kip Sullivan, the expert on Traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage. We have had a running dialogue for about a year now. Most recently, Angry Bear featured Kip’s PNHP Single Payer Healthcare Financing Series detailing why healthcare is expensive in the US. I have put up numerous posts on healthcare, Medicare, Medicare Advantage. This podcast by Kip and Ralph Nader gets into the take over of Traditional...

Yet another one of those Matadors  Adorno’s metaphor of the “matadors of the culture industry” didn’t fall out of the sky. Nearly four decades earlier — sometime between 1931 and 1933 — he had written several short pieces, one of which was titled “Applause.”  I came across mention of it when I was looking to see if Susan Buck-Morss had anything to say about pseudo-activity in her The Origin of Negative Dialectics. I didn’t find anything on...

Is The Downward Sloping Phillips Curve Back?  Maybe. We have gotten so used to the idea that to the extent it is even meaningful it is flat at an inflation rate of 2%, nobody talks about the old textbook Phillips Curve that slopes down.  But there is some evidence that out of all these pandemic upheavals it may be back, at least for a while. If this is the case then indeed there may be a tradeoff, and the higher inflation the US is experiencing...