The Angry Bear

Jobless claims: pandemic progress continues [Note: I’ll comment on the Q1 GDP report later today or tomorrow.] New jobless claims will almost certainly continue to be the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 or 4 months, as increasing numbers of vaccinated people and outdoor activities lead to an abatement of the pandemic. Seven weeks ago I set a few objective targets for new claims: to be under 500,000 by Memorial Day, and below...

by Joseph Joyce The Next “Lost Decade” The 1980s were a “lost decade” of economic growth for those developing countries in Latin America that were enveloped in a debt crisis. Many now fear that we are on the verge of another debt crisis in the wake of borrowing by governments to support their economies during the pandemic. A concerted response will be needed to avoid it. Countries such as Mexico and Brazil had borrowed during the 1970s to...

Tags: open thread

More signs of an economic Boom I have a new article discussing Monday’s durable goods new orders report up at Seeking Alpha, explaining how this data fits into the overall picture of a production-side Boom continuing in the months ahead.  As usual, clicking over and reading will increase your knowledge of what to expect in the months ahead for the economy, and reward me with a few $$$ for the effort I put in. While I am at it, the consumer...

While house price gains continue to go nuts, housing remains much more affordable than at the peak of the bubble The boom – and maybe insanity – in house price gains continued in February, as both the Case Shiller and FHFA house price indexes increased roughly 1% just since January! The YoY increase for both was almost exactly 12%, as shown in the graph below: While the YoY increase in house prices matches those of the bubble peak, and are,...

Robert Mundell And Supply Side Economics  The death of Nobel Prize winner Robert A. Mundell at age 88 has brought forth much discussion about his work and legacy.  Most of this discussion, such as several columns by Paul Krugman, have commented favorably on the work for which he was officially given the prize, several papers he wrote in the late 1950s and early 1960s while he was at the IMF.  These papers, drawing on the experience of his native...

When a Guatemalan family borrows money to pay a coyote to, hopefully safely, smuggle one of their children into the United States, we might yet hear the talking heads refer to it as the search for a better life. Perhaps. More likely it is done out of deep despair. Despair from seeing year after year of failed crops, of failed government, of their country being a failed nation, …. That’s despair, as in the lack of any hope; despair as in desperate....

Dave Reilly died peacefully in his sleep, of “natural causes,” last Thursday morning. At least, I hope it will still be last Thursday morning by the time I finish this post. Better known in the blogsphere as Lance Mannion, he has been a friend and an inspiration for about fifteen years now. And an intimidation. He was a fast, great writer. We attended a couple of the same panels at the Clinton Global Institute. Ten minutes in, I would still...

Commenter R.J.S. Ohio anti-fracking activist joins Greta Thunberg to decry fossil fuel subsidies at Earth Day Congressional Hearing A self-described “fracking refugee” from Belmont County, Ohio on Thursday joined Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Earth Day to urge a congressional subcommittee to abandon subsidies to the fossil fuel industry when Congress passes its next infrastructure bill. Jill Antares Hunkler told the House...

Coronavirus dashboard for April 26: reasons for optimism all around Let’s start with an overview of total cases and deaths in the US: 1.7 in every 1,000 Americans has died of COVID-19. 9.7% of the entire population has had a *confirmed* infection. Probably another 5% to 10% have been infected, but were never tested. With large-scale vaccinations, plus the onset of warmer weather (so fewer indoor gatherings), the incipient “4th wave”...