The Angry Bear

December jobs report: more signs of real tightness, while new jobs added are (seasonally?) disappointing There were three big questions I had going into this jobs report: 1. whether the big decrease in new jobless claims to a half-century low would translate to another big top-line number in the jobs report2. is wage growth holding up? Is it accelerating?3. Would last month’s “poor” 210,000 number of new jobs be revised higher?  The answers...

(Dan here…just a ‘for example’ of the econ blogosphere for your curiosity) February 14, 2003 3:20 am Income and Consumption by Angry Bear So here’s the bit of information that lead me to finally decide to put my two cents on the web. Dave Neiwert reports that the 2003 Economic Report of the President contains language referring to plans to eliminate or reduce the income tax and replace it with a consumption (i.e., sales) tax. This is an...

That is a pretty dumb question. There are still some who claim they are not even to blame or responsible after a couple of decades of Pharma spreading around this poison. Now some are trying to make the others who are restricting the use of legal drugs the enemy. Some opening points before I get into the next part of this entitled topic. In 2015, 227 million prescriptions were written for opioids such as OxyContin, Vicodin, and Fentanyl. This...

Initial and continuing jobless claims: 2022 starts out where 2021 left off The labor market in 2022 started out where it left off in 2021, as new claims increased slightly, by 7,000, to 207,000. The 4 week average of new claims increased 4.750 to 204,500: Readings this low haven’t been seen in half a century. Continuing claims for jobless benefits also rose slightly, by 36,000, to 1,754,000: Except for 2018-19, we haven’t seen continuing...

I just read the transcript of Biden’s address on the anniversary of the attack on the Capitol, which has gotten generally favorable reviews.  I thought the speech highlighted an inconsistency in Biden’s approach to politics that has served him poorly.  Biden has emphasized bringing the country together, working with Republicans, and returning the country to “normal”.  This was obviously never going to happen.  Of course, it was possible that the...

Via Brad DeLong: Shadi, this makes zero sense. Liberals made masks, expertise, and science a "cultural identity marker" because it is stark raving insane in a pandemic to adopt any other culture. You seem to be assuming it's normal, somehow, that half our country has entered a mass psychosis– https://t.co/jFdPhPa5qi— Claire Berlinski. (@ClaireBerlinski) December 28, 2021Berlinski understates her case. The notion that liberals claim to “follow...

November JOLTS report: imagine, if you will, a game of musical chairs, New Deal democrat Imagine a game like musical chairs, except that some players are the chairs (employers) as well as people who want to sit in the chairs (potential employees), and players, both sitters and chairs, are continually entering and exiting the game. The game would be in equilibrium if the number of sitters and chairs are always equal. If there are more...

This Life: faith, work, and free time The blurbs on the first few pages of Martin Hägglund’s This Life are so surprisingly accurate that it would be hard to describe the book with an original superlative. “Monumental!” “Powerful!” “Important!” “Electrifying!” “Profound, thoughtful, compelling, and insightful!” Those blurbs were not idle puffery. All that is left for me to add is that I liked it very much. Oh, just one more thing… Hägglund’s...

Agricultual Economist and Farmer Michael Smith, Sherman Act, Part 2: The Small Farmer Pitchfork Army Most are now aware of the Biden Administrations recent announcement and press briefing for a plan to combat prices in the meat industry. If not, you can find a bit of information here:  Readout of President Joe Biden’s Event with Farmers, “Ranchers on his Action Plan for a More Competitive Meat and Poultry Supply Chain“ And you can also see...