The Angry Bear

Coronavirus dashboard for March 15: good news, and cause for concern A year ago today I wrote about the accuracy of Jim Bianco’s forecast of exponential spread of COVID-19. At that time there were exactly 2952 cases, but increasing at 30% each day, and I wrote, “I have not seen any government action significant enough to stop this exponential projection being correct.”  As of yesterday, there have been 29,438,775 *confirmed* cases – 9% of the...

A Bit of History Senator’s being gentlemen as thought by Aaron Burr led to the removal of the Previous Question Motion. The House and Senate rulebooks in 1789 were nearly identical with each having a rule book including what is known as the “Previous Question” motion. The House kept their motion and the Senate eliminated it. The Motion empowers a simple majority to cut off debate. The Senate has no such rule in its books to do so. What...

“Letters from an American” Professor Heather Cox Richardson’s column today I find interesting and hopefully AB readers do also. Professor Cox Richardson’s first topic of the day discusses the Justice system and how it is being influenced by political moneyed interests. Her second topic touches on McConnell warning Democrats not to change the filibuster. McConnell’s warning comes across as a threat not just to Democrats but to all...

Commenter and writer RJS (Marketwatch666) reports on February Producer Prices. Producer Prices rose 0.5% in February on Higher Wholesale Food & Energy Prices The seasonally adjusted Producer Price Index (PPI) for final demand rose 0.5% in February, as prices for finished wholesale goods were on average 1.4% higher, while margins of final services providers increased by 0.1%…that followed a January report that had the PPI 1.3% higher, with...

Chairman Powell, Secretary Yellen, and President Biden have recently spoken about the long term consequences for many of economic downturns. More should, more often. The Media should recognize how important this is; ask the question whenever it needs to be asked. The Congress should put this front and center in any and all discussions about economic policy. Why? Because millions of Americans never recovered from 1979-1980. Millions more never...

New jobless claims continue to decline, just above the pandemic low New jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. They are going to tell us whether my suspicion that, as a critical mass of those vaccinated is reached, there will be a veritable surge in renewed commercial and social activities and attendant consumer spending, leading in turn to a strong rebound in monthly employment gains...

 –by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 8 – 12 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Although rising long term interest rates are likely to have consequences in 2022, 2021 is shaping up to be a blowout year for economic (and hopefully employment) growth, driven by dual huge monetary and fiscal stimuli. As usual, clicking over and reading should bring you up to the figurative moment, and reward me...

“To Tackle Inequality, We Need to Start Talking About Where Wealth Comes From,” Evonomics, Laurie Macfarlane, March 13, 2021 Do people in Britain resent the rich? According to two new studies published this week, the answer to this question is: “not really.” The studies, one commissioned by Trust for London and another by Tax Justice UK, explore public attitudes towards wealth based on focus groups held across England. Both found that most...

“How The Humanities Building Went Wrong” Or Does Brutalist Architecture Represent Fascist “Institutionalized Tyranny”?  My freshly arrived Spring 2021 issue of “On Wisconsin,” the alumni magazine of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, has an article whose title is the first part of the title above in quotation marks.  The later quotation marks phrase appears in the article, but not the word “fascism.” The article is about a famous but much...