The Angry Bear

Before paper, journalists drew on the walls of caves, trees, rocks, in the dirt and sand, … About 3,000 BCE, they were given papyrus by Egyptians. Then they learned how to write, leaving the art to others. The ink, with which to, followed around 2,600 BCE. On parchment around 300 BCE, paper since about 200 BCE. Printing on paper evolved in several locations between 1040 and 1440 CE. For more than 600 years, journalism was associated with writing and...

RJS Reports: Producer Prices Rose 0.2% in December; Record 6.9% Annual Increase in Core PPI; Record 7.9% YoY Increase for Final Demand Services The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.2% in December, as average prices for finished wholesale goods fell 0.4%, while margins of final services providers were 0.5% higher . . . that increase followed a revised 1.0% increase in November, when prices for finished...

Weekly Indicators for January 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. In addition to Omicron, commodity prices and interest rates are having an impact across the board on the long and short term forecasts and the nowcast. (Just for spite, two weeks ago some RW nut jobs had a fit about my including a meteor as the image for the article, so this week I including an even more graphic...

December real retail sales tank; industrial production also declines; consumer slowdown seems nearly certain   – by New Deal democrat Two days ago, in connection with consumer inflation, I reiterated that: “we certainly are at a point where a sharp deceleration beginning with the consumer sector of the economy is more likely than not.” I didn’t expect to have it show up so soon! Retail sales, one of my favorite “real” economic indicators,...

Continuing unemployment claims make new 45+ year low – by New Deal democrat New claims increased 23,000 last week to 230,000. The 4 week average of new claims increased 6,250 to 210,750: The big increase is likely affected by seasonality. It’ll be another week or two before we can tell if there is any real change in trend. If there is, it is likely to be a flattening in new claims rather than any significant increase.  Continuing claims...

Commenter and Blogger RJS, Focus on Fracking, Strategic Petroleum Reserve at a new 19 year low; commercial crude inventories fall to 45 month low, total oil supplies lowest since January 20th 2012; implied gasoline demand at 11 month low The Latest US Oil Supply and Disposition Data from the EIA US oil data from the US Energy Information Administration for the week ending January 7th indicated that despite a big drop in our oil exports, a...

Last time in Denver and some observations. My youngest son and I took off to the Little Big Horn to see where Custer made a fool of himself. He died for it and took a whole bunch of others with him. We spent the night in Hardin, Montana in a cheap, yet clean hotel, in a small room with double beds. There was not much to the town of 3600 people. It was not a dangerous place to be either. I felt more danger in Mesa AZ. We the gray-hairs, are viewed...

What are leading Democrats trying to accomplish with their current push on voting rights?  It’s far from clear.  One approach to voting rights reform would have been to reach out quietly to Republicans and to try to negotiate a limited bill that could win bipartisan support.  Biden could express optimism that reasonable Republicans would come to the table and work something out.  If that effort failed, Democrats could have blamed Republicans. ...

Consumer inflation lessens in December; real wages increase, but a consumer slowdown remains likely Consumer prices increased 0.5% in December, a deceleration from the past several months. But this is still well above the typical monthly increase in prices pre-pandemic:  On a YoY basis, at 7.1% consumer inflation is the highest since the big Reagan recession of 1981-82. My favorite measure, CPI ex energy, is also up 5.6% YoY, and tied for...