The Angry Bear

I am mainly linking to this fairly important article by Dan Diamond in The Washington Post. Diamond quotes many people arguing that the US really should do more to get everyone in the world who is willing to take the vaccine vaccinated. I am going to move on quickly to how this could be done, because I think it is obvious that it should be done. I think I will try to get a few silly things out of the way. What about other rich countries ? Is it...

Threw a wrench in it . . . , Homeless On The High Desert, Ten Bears December 13, 2021 in g’da said  If this is new to you, you haven’t been paying attention ~ Former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows sent an email saying the National Guard would be present to ‘protect pro Trump people’ in the lead up to the US Capitol insurrection, according to a new contempt report released by the January 6 committee Sunday night. Anyone that was...

Gov. Chris Sununu (R-NH) responds to Senator Ron Johnson’s telling people to gargle with mouthwash to kill Covid. Mr. Johnson: “Standard gargle, mouthwash, has been proven to kill the coronavirus (according to an audio recording of his remarks). If you get it, you may reduce viral replication. Why not try all these things?” Why not? It builds false hope of a simple cure when there is none and a hope for preventing Covid which gargling does not...

Oil rebounds on Omicron optimism; SPR at another 18 1/2 year low as sales to Asian refiners begin, Focus of Fracking, RJS Not really much news this week; gasoline & distillate inventories continue to rebound from the lows, no big moves on prices or much else; the headline is almost contrived . . . the “sales to Asian refiners” came from an oil blogger who said we sold SPR oil to China and India. That information hasn’t been released...

Disposable time as a common-pool resource IX — Disposable time as a model for environmental governance Not only could disposable time be regarded as a common-pool resource similar to other common-pool resources, but it could stand as the single most far-reaching and democratically vital model of a common-pool resource. Donald Stabile alluded to something in this vein when he noted that, “Human labor is also the primary constituent of the society...

A Looming Anniversary  Sighhhh… The possibility of a Russian invasion of Ukraine is now front-page news, with little sign that Putin is going to move his massive military buildup by the border back anytime soon, even if he does not invade.  After the phone call this past week between him and Biden, supposedly lower-level negotiations have started, but it is unlikely Putin is going to be given anything dramatic that he has been demanding, such...

There is an interesting discussion about a topic where I know especially little: K-12 education. Within it, there is a narrow discussion about whether it makes sense to try to teach statistics to people who don’t know calculus. This is a clear question. However, it seems that the people who discuss it skip a much more basic question which is why mathematical statistics should be taught to high school students, and an even more basic question which...

How to track the Omicron variant in close to real time No economic data today, and Covid information is pretty useless because of lack of reporting over the weekend. I drafted a long piece about the state of the American consumer, which I’ve decided to put up at Seeking Alpha, since, hey!, why shouldn’t I earn some lunch money for it? I’ll post a link when one is available. But in the meantime let me drop this link by Dr. Trevor Bedford, an...

Blogger and Commenter RJS, MarketWatch 666, November’s consumer prices, October’s trade deficit, wholesale sales, and JOLTS The consumer price index rose 0.8% in November, as higher prices for food, energy, new and used vehicles, airline fares, and toys were only slightly offset by lower prices for information technology devices, hospital services and for vehicle insurance….the Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau of Labor Statistics...