The Angry Bear

Norway’s Climate Dilemma Carlos Joly, a finance-and-climate consultant, has a piece today on the upcoming election in Norway, one of the world’s major exporters of oil and gas.  To its credit, Norway puts its earnings in a fund to support future generations after its deposits are exhausted, known to economists as the Hartwick Rule.  That’s great for economic sustainability in Norway, but what about the threat its fossil fuel industry poses to the...

Libertarians criticize covid policy in broad, uncompromising terms.  These arguments are unproductive at best; at worst they are divisive and potentially destructive.  Many are just propaganda. This does not mean that criticism of the government response to covid is off limits.  The alternative to the libertarian approach is policy analysis:  evaluating specific policies on their own merits by marshalling evidence and estimating their likely...

Idaho Health Board Candidate Calls COVID-19 Vaccine “Needle Rape” | Boise State Public Radio Angry Bear has its share of expressed ignorance about Covid, wearing of masks, social-distancing, and being vaccinated to mitigate the impact of Covid. One would think government officials would disavow politics and work together figting the pandemic. Not so . . . State governments and governors lacking the knowledge and education in medicine and...

August Producer Price Index Sets New YoY Record Increases for Final Demand Goods, Final Demand Services, and a 46 year High for Prices of Intermediate Goods; MarketWatch 666, Commenter RJS Producer Price Index by Commodity: Final Demand: Final Demand Goods (PPIFDG) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.7% in August, as prices for finished wholesale goods rose 1.0% while...

Coronavirus dashboard for September 10: was Labor Day indeed the peak of the Delta wave? I have been saying for some time that the Delta wave would probably peak around Labor Day. It’s not certain yet, but it is looking increasingly likely to have been the case. The Delta wave struck in both the US and Israel at almost the same time, with almost the same vaccination profiles. Here’s what cases per capita (bold lines) and deaths per capita...

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...