The Angry Bear

Beware of “The Narrative”! Back in 1979 philosopher Jean-François Lyotard was commissioned to do a report for the province of Quebec that turned into a book, The Postmodern Condition. I remember that book well because I read it during my graduate studies that focused on narrative analysis. A central theme of Lyotard’s book was the “death of metanarratives,” such as the Idea of Progress or Marx’s Class Struggle as the engine of history. Fast...

I came across an excellent post by Infidel753 who happens to blog at a site of the same name. I believe Infidel gives a sound rendition of the issues with the Texas recent abortion law and SCOTUS court’s reaction to it. The issue of “standing” is made by Infidel in his recital of the issues. I believe he is right on this point as well as the commenter JackD who said it is no one else’s business. Jack’s claim is of the same intent. It remains to...

There is good money in libertarianism.  The Brownstone Institute was recently founded by Jeffrey Tucker, a libertarian who most recently has spent his time criticizing covid lockdowns.  He just published an article criticizing Biden’s support for a vaccine mandate.  He lists five problems with Biden’s policy, but is it analysis or propaganda? Let’s take a look. 1. The Biden mandate pretends that the only immunity is injected, not natural. . . ....

Over this year, our readership has grown by >28% as measured by Google Analytics which uses a thirty-day rolling average to reflect solid trends in readership. The Bear, better known as Angry Bear in the blogosphere, is well past the initial milestone of consistency and maintenance of readership and the associated increases. No small achievement. An array of thank yous to newer Angry Bear contributors Eric Kramer, Ken Melvin, Michael Smith;...

July JOLTS report shows market still out of equilibrium, no additional hiring from early termination of benefits This morning’s JOLTS report for July is particularly important, because July was the first full month after a number of GOP-controlled States terminated enhanced unemployment benefits, on the theory that they were excessive and were coddling idle workers. Thus we should be seeing a big drop in unfilled job openings, as those people...

Jobless claims blow away the Delta wave (but beware Labor Day seasonality) This morning’s initial jobless claims report makes it shockingly evident that the Delta wave has had no appreciable effect on at least the “firing” side of the jobs market (vs. the “hiring” side, where it might have). Initial claims declined 35,000 to 310,000, and the 4-week average also declined 16,750 to 339,500, both yet more pandemic lows: By way of...

This is genuinely puzzling to me.  This is from Biden’s statement about the Supreme Court’s decision on Texas Law SB8: One reason I became the first president in history to create a Gender Policy Council was to be prepared to react to such assaults on women’s rights. Hence, I am directing that Council and the Office of the White House Counsel to launch a whole-of-government effort to respond to this decision, looking specifically to the...

A little-noticed part of Biden’s covid address last night covered testing.  He promised to use the Defense Production Act to ramp up production of rapid tests, to make at-home tests available through retailers at cost, and to increase the availability of free pharmacy-based tests. (A few details here.) Making testing faster, cheaper, and easily accessible seems like such an obvious thing to do.  In fact, it was an obvious thing to do months ago. ...

Biden and the Press Commenter Dale Coberly: I ran across this in Salon newsletter, “Your daily update from Salon” Written by Brett Bachman. Buried deep in President Joe Biden’s Tuesday speech on America’s withdrawal from Afghanistan was a line . . . one of those uncanny truth-telling moments that Washington power brokers rarely indulge in: Quote “This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It’s about ending an era of...