The Angry Bear

The wins in Georgia are huge. Now, if Alabama, Mississippi, and South Carolina can just come up with their own Stacy Abrams, we could see a snowball effect that would change American politics forever. Well, at least, for a long time. Some might think that this outcome along with its portents can solve the electoral college problem. It doesn’t. Doesn’t solve the problem of someone as unfit as Mitch McConnell tyrannizing the nation. The few...

Zooming in on the Defects of PowerPoint  I’ve just finished several days of staring, hour after hour, at the year’s economics meetings via Zoom.  What really struck me, beyond the content of the talks, was the way Zoom exacerbates “death by bullet point”. PowerPoint’s capabilities encourage speakers to load up their slides with lots of text and graphics, which then leads the audience to glue their eyeballs to the slides and not the speaker. ...

The End Of The Embargo Against Qatar  Yesterday Saudi Arabia announced that it is ending the embargo/boycott of Qatar, and though reportedly the UAE leadership is not entirely happy with this, they are going along with this as are the other nations involved in this, Bahrain and Egypt. This had begun in June 2017, reportedly with the encouragement and initial support by Trump and Jared Kushner, with them buying into it as part of an anti-Iran...

Meet Brad Raffensperger. Take a moment and listen to all three clips. The first is at Crooks and Liars. In an interview with 11Alive reporter Brendan Keefe, the reporter asked Raffensperger directly: “If the president hadn’t tweeted, and tweeted something that was false, would we have ever heard that call recording?”Brad: “No, it was a private conversation as far as I was concerned. He broke privacy when he put out a tweet, but then his tweet...

I am not sure what AB Commenters and readers see on TV, in the news, or on the blogosphere. The news I am reading is surreal. I keep hoping we wakeup from this nightmare and things are normal again. Then too, what is normal? One more event date to experience past January 6th, the inauguration. Will trump even attend, will he leave quietly, or will we still experience more raucous behavior? Trump going golfing on inauguration day would be nice....

November construction spending confirms building surge One of my consistent themes in the past few months has been how the housing market is priming the economy for strong growth in 2021 as soon as the pandemic is brought under control. In that vein, November construction spending surged, confirming what we have already been seeing in housing permits and starts. First of all, here are both total and residential construction spending for the...

Each week, Dan puts up an Open Thread post for people to use to discuss topics not related to posts. “Redundant alert,” off-topic comments or subjects to posts can be discussed in the Open Threads. The rules are the same for hateful, discriminatory, etc. comments on an Open Thread. Don’t do it or you will be trashed or tossed into “spam.” We do not see everything written. If we miss it, take a moment and let us know directly rather than...

During the call with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger , Trump cited a number of voting fraud – conspiracy theories. The State of Georgia Voting System Implementation manager, Gabriel Sterling debunked each theory as being inaccurate or false on Monday afternoon, January 4th. Its Monday and speaking in front of a poster that had many of the debunked claims Trump mentioned, Sterling starts off; “It’s whack-a-mole again, it’s...

Weekly Indicators for December 28 – January 1 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. In a sparse data environment, it continues to stand out how surprisingly well – under the circumstances – the economy is doing, and how primed it is to really take off once the pandemic is brought under control. As usual, clicking over and reading brings you up to the virtual moment, and puts a penny or...

Even More Questions What is capital?What power does capital have when invested in machinery, lands, agricultural improvements, etc.?What happens to individuals when they have experienced the accumulative power of money?