The Angry Bear

Rescued from Oblivion! I was sure that the English translation of Friedrich Engels’s Preface to volume 2 of Capital had used the expression “rescued from oblivion” in referring to the 1821 pamphlet, The Source and Remedy of the National Difficulties. But the only translations I could find didn’t agree: “In this pamphlet, the importance of which should have been recognized on account of the terms surplus produce or capital, and which Marx saved...

Disappointing weekly increase in new jobless claims, but monthly trend improves; expect a 200,000+ number of new jobs in next Employment Report  – by New Deal democrat New jobless claims are likely to the most important weekly economic data for the next 3 to 6 months. They are going to tell us whether my suspicion is correct that, as a critical mass of those vaccinated is reached, there will be a veritable surge in renewed commercial and...

I posted a YouTube of Warnock’s speech along with snippets of it.There are other valuable portions of it worth putting into print if I could type that fast. Alas, this four fingered typist is not so fast or adroit. The memory works for a few sentences. It is a good speech! Using the Big Lie of Voter Fraud as a pretext to Voter Suppression “The People Of Georgia sent their first African American Senator and first Jewish Senator my brother John...

Coronavirus dashboard for March 19: yes, vaccinations are working The three big Western standouts for vaccination progress have been Israel, the UK, and the US, respectively. And in all three, there have been dramatic declines in both cases and deaths. Let’s look at them in order. First, Israel: 56% of all Israelis have had at least one dose of the Pfizer vaccine. 50% have been fully vaccinated. Cases have declined 81%. Deaths have...

Big (weather related) declines in February production and sales This morning (Tuesday) we got the most important single metrics for both the consumer and producer side of the economy for February, respectively, retail sales and industrial production. Both were big misses, one explicitly and the other likely due to the big freeze in Texas and neighboring States.Let’s turn to production first. Total industrial production declined by -2.2% in...

Tags: open thread

We are in the process of making changes to the comment section of Angry Bear to tackle the issue of comments disappearing or being delayed in posting. We need feedback from readers on their experience Friday and over the weekend: e-mail Dan at [email protected] or Bill at [email protected]. ...

Barkley Rosser, Econospeak, The Woman Behind The New Deal, March 16, 2021 I was long aware that Frances Perkins (1880-1965) was the first woman to serve as a cabinet secretary, namely Secretary of Labor for Franklin D. Roosevelt, in which position she was one of the two people to serve in their position all the way through his presidency, the other being Interior Secretary Harold Ickes. Somehow I never heard that much about her, but an article in...

Coronavirus dashboard for March 15: good news, and cause for concern A year ago today I wrote about the accuracy of Jim Bianco’s forecast of exponential spread of COVID-19. At that time there were exactly 2952 cases, but increasing at 30% each day, and I wrote, “I have not seen any government action significant enough to stop this exponential projection being correct.”  As of yesterday, there have been 29,438,775 *confirmed* cases – 9% of the...

A Bit of History Senator’s being gentlemen as thought by Aaron Burr led to the removal of the Previous Question Motion. The House and Senate rulebooks in 1789 were nearly identical with each having a rule book including what is known as the “Previous Question” motion. The House kept their motion and the Senate eliminated it. The Motion empowers a simple majority to cut off debate. The Senate has no such rule in its books to do so. What...