The Angry Bear

March consumer prices, retail sales, industrial production, & new home construction; February’s business inventories RJS at MarketWatch 666 Seasonally adjusted retail sales increased by 9.8% in March, the second largest jump on record, after retail sales for January and February were both revised higher…the Advance Retail Sales Report for March (pdf) from the Census Bureau estimated that our seasonally adjusted retail and food services sales...

Jobless claims break on through – 1M+ jobs report for April looks likely As I have said for the past few weeks, new jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. With the number of those vaccinated continuing to increase, I have been expecting a big increase in renewed consumer and social activities, with a concomitant gain in monthly employment gains – as we saw in the March jobs report.Four...

The interviewee says that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned in the United States; notes that though blacks only make up 13% of the general population, they make up 40% of the prison population. While it is quite likely that blacks are disproportionately imprisoned, it is what the interviewee didn’t say that begs asking. Why is it that blacks are being disproportionately imprisoned? For the answer to that, first, let’s take a look at some U.S....

Raffi Khatchadourian’s Ghost Walls {Surviving the Crackdown in Xinjiang ( As mass detentions and surveillance dominate the lives of China’s Uyghurs and Kazakhs, a woman struggles to free herself.)} is beyond Margaret Atwood dystopian. Ghost Walls gives a victim’s accounting of her own experiencing of China’s reaction to the cultural differences between the Uyghurs, Kazakhs, and other indigenous Turkic peoples, and China’s Han Chinese majority. A...

 – by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for April 12 – 16 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The big call I made last year is that conditions were setting up for a Boom this year, once the pandemic started to be overcome. Well, almost half of all Americans have received at least one dose of vaccine, and all the signs are that the Boom is well and truly upon us. So the nowcast and short term forecast is...

Naked Capitalism had this commentary up on its site as introduced by Yves Smith. I made some small editorial changes to further emphasize the two points Yves makes in the beginning and also some of the commentary in the article. Both parts are good reads. To wit; If you are handcuffed and on the ground, you are killed. If you drive away, you are killed. If you run, then stop, and turn around with your hands up; you are killed. The common thread...

Washington Equitable: Tax evasion at the top of the U.S. income distribution and How To Fight it. There is another version of the issue starting off with Senior fellow (Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute), Steven M. Rosenthal taking on the issue; “If Congress Wants the IRS To Collect More Tax from The Rich, It Needs to Pass Better Laws.” Or you can go to NBER version of the Washington Equitible Working Paper; Tax...

From Treehuggers; “Spain To Try Nationwide 4-Day Workweek” A shorter workweek has been suggested s a means of improving work-life balance and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Freelance Writer, Olivia Rosane. The topics of a shorter work week and climate control was brought up by Sandwichman at Econospeak with the former being touted numerous times by Sandwichman. Íñigo Errejón, a representative from the new leftwing party Más...

Tags: open thread

CPI Rose 0.6% in March on Higher Prices for Energy and Transportation Services, R.J.S, MarketWatch 666 The consumer price index rose 0.6% in March, the largest monthly increase since August 2012, as higher prices for fuel, utilities, transportation services, financial services, and used vehicles were only slightly offset by lower prices for clothing and for communication commodities…the Consumer Price Index Summary from the Bureau of Labor...