The Angry Bear

“The fish stick is the bane of school children who consider it to be a bland, over cooked, breaded – crusted, cardboard tasting, fish-less effort of lunchrooms and mothers to deceive them into consuming more protein.” In the 1920s, entrepreneur Clarence Birdseye developed a novel freezing technique. Food was placed between metal plates which froze the food quickly and prevented large ice crystals from forming. When used on fish, the method...

and imports of distillates at a 26 week low.. Commenter R.J.S. Oil prices moved lower this week on rising Covid cases global​ly ​and on a surprise increase in US crude supplies . . .  after rising 6.1% to $63.13 a barrel last week  on strong economic data and on upwardly revised demand forecasts, the contract price of US light sweet crude for May delivery opened lower on Monday on trader’s jitters over surging Covid cases in Europe and India,...

New and existing home sales vs. inventory I have a full plate in, you know, actual life today, so let me just drop this note here while we’re waiting for new home sales to be reported. I’ll update later when I have a chance. The evidence is crystal clear that, as to new homes (which are by far more important than existing home sales in terms of the economy), sales lead prices, which in turn lead inventory. Here are sales (red) vs....

A bit of Tom Sullivan @ Hullabaloo this day. Democrat Moe Davis lost the race last fall for the congressional seat in NC-11 to Republican Madison Cawthorn. The seat was left open when Rep. Mark Meadows vacated it to fumble around for the Trump White House. Moe Davis tweeted this morning in response to a local letter to the editor denying the assault on the Capitol even happened. And the Letter: “Denialism is alive and well “Tom...

 -by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for April 19 – 23 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. I feel like a broken record . . . With pedal-to-the-metal fiscal and monetary stimulus, plus the opening up of pent-up demand with a large pool of vaccinated people, the economy is on fire, and is going to remain so for some time to come. The question is, as we look out into next year, how much of an impact are...

The US may have crossed an important vaccination threshold On Monday I noted that in Chile, where there had been a severe renewed outbreak of coronavirus despite an aggressive vaccination program, cases had plateaued, and this had occurred “when over 35% of the population had received at least one dose of vaccine, and 20% were fully vaccinated.”Well, the recent upturn in cases in the US also seems to have plateaued: And guess what? The...

These past few decades have been witness to great change. It is hard to imagine that the Covid Pandemic will not increase this rate of change; that the pace of change will be slowing down anytime soon. Looking back, the advent of the microprocessor and all that followed changed the world forever. Looking forward, the COVID-19 pandemic, too, will little doubt change the world forever. The one gave us the means to do things differently, the other, the...

Bellwether Bullard versus Sirenic Summers  So this is about the now getting to be passe topic of what will happen to inflation this year, with Larry Summers having gone out of his way to make a lot of noise in criticizing the expansionary fiscal policy partly passed but partly still under consideration in Congress as threatening a possible outbreak of 60s-70s style inflation at an entrenched much higher rate than we are seeing now.  He has put the...

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First to step out of the right hand corner was John Cornyn of Texas. Floated something he had read in Politico; it didn’t. None of Cornyn’s stings, stung. Departing the ring before the first was over; Cornyn mumbled something about butterflies and bees, or maybe it was something about Dinah. Next, Senator Lindsey of South Carolina would show his fellows how it was done; how to handle an uppity black women. Stepped in; wham never knew what hit him....