The Angry Bear

The Democrats’ problem in the Senate, explained One of the memes that I have read quite a few times in the past week is that the Democrats have won 7 of the last 8 Presidential elections and that the institutions of electoral government discriminate against them. A review of the actual results of the last 8 elections does not quite support that assertion. In only 4 of those 8 elections has either party mustered a majority of voters; in the other 4 the...

Biden Won Because Of White Men?  OK, I confess I am mystified.  An article in The Guardian by Musa al-Gharbi looks at the data now available on voting patterns in the US presidential elections of 2016 compared to 2020.  Almost all groups moved towards being more pro-Trump, including both Black men and women, Hispanic men and women, Asian men and women, and white women.  The only group that moved away from Trump was white men, with his margin declining...

Via Truthout comes this thought: In 2016, the big takeaway was that 53 percent of white women voters cast their ballots in favor of Donald Trump, according to exit polls, helping cement his victory. But, in 2020, white women voters surpassed their 2016 levels of support as, according to exit polls, 55 percent of white women turned out to vote for the president… Via the New York Times exit poll reporting reflects this impression from the Edison Research...

First a story, then an introduction to Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice Org., and finally some cold hard facts from Alan about what is happening to millions of people who have student loans. Your Angry Bear blogger and activist went to a garden party in Michigan in support of Democrats and Senator Debbie Stabenow pre-2018 election. I had donated to the Democrats and directly in support of various county, state, and federal candidates. Since I had...

Lack of inflation in September consistent with weak demand; real wages increase, but will the pandemic derail the gains? Consumer prices were unchanged in October, both on a seasonally adjusted and unadjusted basis: But while the lack of inflation is good news in isolation, the last two months can also be viewed as a sign of economic weakness – lack of demand – from a recession. Digging a little deeper, for the past 40 years, recessions had...

New and continued jobless claims: best week of the pandemic; can it survive a new emergency? This week’s new and continued jobless claims, both seasonally adjusted and unadjusted, declined to new pandemic lows – but at levels roughly equivalent to their worst readings during the Great Recession. On an unadjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 20,799 to 723,105. Seasonally adjusted claims declined by 48,000 to 709,000. The 4-week moving average...

New Reasons To Believe Trump Will Not Attempt A Coup  Officially Trump continues to hold a hard line of denying he has lost, with most GOP officeholders continuing to support his denials publicly, and he is likely to continue to not officially concede in various ways, including such as blocking official support for the transition process to a future Biden admin, which is potentially damaging in various ways.  Nevertheless, after some important...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for November 9 – 13 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With Joe Biden assuming the Presidency on January 20, and an announcement of a successful vaccine by Pfizer that should be available by next spring or summer, the short and long leading indicators should once again be giving their usual signals for next year. And we have a pretty good idea of what that means… As usual, clicking...

September JOLTS report shows jobs recovery has been real – but will it continue? Yesterday’s (Nov. 10)  JOLTS report for September showed a jobs market that continues to be, ever so slowly, on the mend. Openings and quits were up (good), and layoffs and discharges were down (also good). The only negative was that hires actually declined, although slightly. We are far enough past the worst of the pandemic jobs losses that it is worthwhile to compare the...