The Angry Bear

“Ambivalence” has dropped! “The Ambivalence of Disposable Time: The Source and Remedy of theNational Difficulties at Two Hundred,” Tom Walker,Simon Fraser University  Two things I am especially pleased about that were sort of incidental at the time: 1. The prominence in the title of “Ambivalence” — the future is ambivalent — and 2. The ending quote by Benjamin of a quote about stereoscopic vision.  The “author’s original version” can...

Hit by “renewed” US sanctions (The Guardian) under trump and a Covid pandemic, Cuba is enduring an economic crisis. Pharmacy shelves are empty, people stand in line for hours to buy chicken, and bread is scarce and hard to find. May 6th Cuba reported 1,060 cases totaling 112,714. Another seven deaths occurred bringing the total to 701. Even as the island nation is under a political siege and suffering from Covid, Cuba is the smallest country in...

March JOLTS report confirms that month’s strong jobs report This morning’s JOLTS report for March confirmed that month’s stellar jobs report. Job openings made a new series high, while layoffs and discharges made a new series low. Hires, quits, and total separations all also moved in the right direction.This report has only a 20 year history, and so includes only two prior recoveries. In those recoveries:  first, layoffs declinedsecond,...

We all expected inflation to arrive: now it’s here This morning’s report on April inflation confirmed what we already knew: inflation, both from the demand and the supply side, was coming. Now it’s here. First of all, take the YoY numbers with a grain of salt. Last April saw actual price declines in the teeth of the worst of the pandemic deaths and lockdowns. Here’s the monthly %change since the beginning of 2020 in total inflation (blue),...

Let me follow up briefly on my post from yesterday on vaccine hesitancy. Demeaning people is the first step towards ignoring their interests or even persecuting them.  Jason Brennan urges us to ignore the welfare of the unvaxxed by painting a picture of them as moral terrorists or extortionists.  He holds them responsible for their confusion and fears.  He pretends that everyone is well-informed and knows how to evaluate scientific evidence, and...

The former actor campaigning for President said, “The government is the problem.” Who needs government? We need it, that’s who. In 1980, any damned fool could look around and see that nations with strong governments succeeded while those with weak governments failed. Yet most of the people believed the damned fool when he told them that government was the problem. There’s little reason to doubt that he believed it. Question is, who paid him...

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.t01.htm#Maybe I am wrong on BLS Household Numbers? Has anyone looked at aggregate Participation Rate and the Civilian Labor Force numeric? Seasonal Adjusted PR is up 2 tenths of 1% and the Civilian Labor Force increased by 430,000 from March to April. Last year, from January 2020 to end of 2020, PR was down 2% The nation has recouped 2 tenths of 1% in April. Employed is up ~300,000 and Unemployed is up...

“It Took the Democrats Half a Century to Rediscover Trickle-Up Economics,” The Soap Box, Bruce Barlett Republicans still cling to trickle-down delusions of the wealthy and big business delivering economic progress to the rest of the nation, while Joe Biden revives a philosophy of growth Democrats have not embraced since LBJ . . . Stimulating economic growth and prosperity from the bottom up. Bruce Bartlett takes the reader on a journey to...

Coronavirus dashboard for May 10: stay the course! The story in the US continues to be that vaccinations work!As of today, the 7 day moving average of new cases is down to a new 8 month low of 40,873 per day. The 7 day moving average of deaths is down to a new 11 month low of 667: Cases are down 5/6’s from their wintertime peak. Deaths are down over 80%. And cases are declining, sometimes strongly so, in almost all the 10 worst States,...