The Angry Bear

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...

MarketWatch 666’s RJS: 5th record in a row; job openings have risen 62% so far this year . . . Here is the Fred graph. Job Openings: Total Nonfarm (JTSJOL) | FRED | St. Louis Fed (stlouisfed.org)Despite record highs, hiring is down and layoffs are up . . . Something is clearly broken. July Job Openings at Record High after June Record Revised Higher; Hiring Down, Job Quitting  and  Layoffs  Higher The Job Openings and Labor Turnover...

The unemployment rate is not *uniquely* overestimating the “true” employment situation Bill McBride a/k/a Calculated Risk put up an entry over the weekend positing that the employment situation is worse than the unemployment rate indicates. He bases this on the expectation that the overall labor force was expected to grow by 100,000 a month in 2020 and this year, whereas as of last month there were a little more than 2.9 million less people...

Portland Not Burned To The Ground  Over this past weekend, I was in Portland visiting for the first time family who gathered for a reunion, with my second daughter, Caitlin, with two of my grandsons, having moved there in January from San Francisco (she is a psychiatrist with the VA system). I had been through a few times in a car but never stopped.  So curious to check it out.  I generally liked the place and had a good time. I also decided to...

Click on image to enlarge . . . Tags: California Vote

This is a C&P from Treehugger, a site Slate was sponsoring about a decade or so ago. Interesting place which writes various articles on tiny homes, environment, etc. The article is about light pollution and how it impacts the environment. When I was the VP for the Township Planning Commission, we had passed an ordinance which regulated light pollution. We were intent on keeping lighting on site rather than allowing it to spray the area with...