The Angry Bear

Because it had always been that way, none could think differently. From time immortal, labor was that what did much of the work of production. There is now a generation, maybe two, on this earth, most of whom will never know labor; will seldom see it performed. The energy for their world will not come from the sweat of the back’s of coal miners. So, if it wasn’t (production = material + labor) what was the real equation for production? The input was...

History Professor Heather Cox Richardson at Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, Boston College writes a daily(?) news letter (Letters from an American) which she describes as; “a chronicle of today’s political landscape, but because you can’t get a grip on today’s politics without an outline of America’s Constitution, and laws, and the economy, and social customs, this newsletter explores what it means, and what it has meant, to be an American.”...

A Few Questions What constitutes the wealth of a nation?What is the source of all wealth and revenue?Does the method by which one receives income — whether wage, rent, profit or interest — indicate the ultimate source of the value represented by it? Do stores of money, machinery, manufactured goods or produce represent reserved surplus labour? ...

Final jobless claims of 2020 continue to show a lack of progress New jobless claims declined for the second week in a row this week, but are still significantly above their recent pandemic lows, while continuing claims, seasonally adjusted, once again made a new pandemic low. There is a sizable but by no means certain likelihood that December’s jobs number will be negative.On a unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 31,736 to...

As the Senate decides whether to send an additional $1400 to US residents, there are two macroeconomic policy issues. One is whether aggregate demand stimulus would be useful. The other is whether we should be concerned about the budget deficit. I think that the case for fiscal stimulus is medium strong and the case for higher Federal Debt is very strong. Thus I agree with Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders and disagree with Larry Summers. The...

The Four big coincident indicators as of the end of 2020 All of the important economic data for 2020 has already been released. In this final week only November house prices and one last week of jobless claims remain. So this is a good time to take a look at the current state of the economy as it has unfolded in this pandemic year. The 4 most important components in the NBER’s toolkit for calling recessions and expansions are real sales,...

Tags: open thread

Reichtum ist verfügbare Zeit und nichts weiter How it started (Charles Wentworth Dilke, 1821): THE PROGRESS OF THIS INCREASING CAPITAL WOULD, in established societies, BE MARKED BY THE DECREASING INTEREST OF MONEY, or, which is the same thing, the decreasing quantity of the labour of others that would be given for its use; but so long as capital could command interest at all, it would seem to follow, that the society cannot have arrived at that...

Who Has Been Warring Against Christmas?  Where I am the Third Day of Christmas is just finishing with the news that Grinch Trump has ended his own brief War on Christmas and is signing the Covid-19 relief bill, thereby reinstating unemployment benefits for 14 million people although they’ll miss a week of payments, as well as preventing millions more from being evicted from their rental housing units, along with the Omnibus spending bill so the...

 by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for December 21 – 25 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. While there have been some signs of softening in a few of the high profile metrics, overall the economy continues to remain surprisingly resilient. As usual, clicking over and reading should bring you up to the moment, and put a little coin jingle in my pocket. ...