The Angry Bear

There are many comments about the increasing costs of automobile insurance. In Michigan, once the no fault insurance was dropped and catastrophic injury insurance was cut, the care of long-term care was edecimated. Many people with serious lifetime injuries were left to fend on their own after reduced payments to caregivers. Past payments to medical was cut in half. The reserve funds were cut also when reimbursed back to customers. I guess what I...

May CPI continued to be all about shelter  – by New Deal democrat Consumer prices in May showed no inflation at all, as a decline in gas prices helped the headline number come in unchanged. YoY inflation decelerated -0.1% to 3.3% – continuing in the narrow 3.0%-3.4% range it has been in for the last year. The bottom line remains that almost the entire inflation “problem” is with shelter, which increased 0.4% again, while the YoY rate...

Apparently the administration is letting Ukraine hit military targets in Russia, though still with some restrictions.  This is way overdue.  It seems clear that Russia under Putin is an expansionist power.  Only a decisive defeat will prevent brutal ethnic cleansing in Ukraine.  Defeat may also lead Putin to refrain from further aggression against his neighbors, and even get him to accept a vision of Russia as an ordinary European country that...

As the title says Trump met with a Court Probation Officer. A first for a president. The Probation Officer will assess him for resources, mental health, and criminal record. Trump’s attitude will play a part in this also. Hopefully. his attorney advises him to shut up. Which if he is smart, he will take the advice. Then again, he is of the opinion he will never go to prison. It is interesting, first president tried in a state court, convicted,...

A long and interesting read. And yes on paying the price. Article by David and Lindsay on what is happening today with increasing pricing across the economy. You can experience it in just about every part of the economy. Further on down this article the authors say, this is more about pricing than supply chain. I would say this is true. However, you can discern whether excess pricing can be justified by reviewing the supply chain costs. Not...

[embedded content] WSJ. President Biden’s unprecedented release of oil from the U.S. petroleum reserves in 2022 turned the White House into an unusually active player in the volatile crude market. The flood of emergency supplies helped arrest surging oil prices after Russia invaded Ukraine and pulled billions of dollars into the Energy Department’s coffers in the process. Oil prices have sputtered since and allowed officials who sold high to...

 – by New Deal democrat This is a continuation of my post from yesterday discussing the large divergences between the Household and Establishment jobs surveys. A big current issue with the Household Survey is whether, by relying on Census estimates, it has substantially underestimated population growth, and in particular immigration-driven growth, in the past two years. Here’s a graph from Wolf Street, the source material of which I have...

I grew up in Oak Ridge TN, the “atomic city.” It was where the uranium was enriched for the Hiroshima bomb. After the war, uranium enrichment found peaceful application in nuclear power plants. Many of the kids I knew growing up had dads who worked at one of the plants–X-10, Y-12, K-25–that researched and developed uranium enrichment and power plant design.After initial enthusiasm for power that would be “too cheap to meter,” nuclear power plants...

It appears the wreckage from the bridge has been cleared away. This will allow container ships, etc. to use the channel in greater capacity to the port. However, getting across the bay will still take time as other routes will need to be taken by cars and trucks. I am sure there are a few angry comments being made as a result of the Dali taking down a major throughfare. Container ship reaching the Baltimore hrbor will resume. ~~~~~~~~ As taken...

If you are driving a big behemoth SUV thinking you are safer, maybe you should think about another vehicle. Here are some results. Logan Carter at Jalopnik gives us the break down. It is picked up in Quartz Business News. The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) just released new crash test results for three full-size, three-row SUVs. The Ford Expedition, Chevrolet Tahoe, and Jeep Wagoneer were reviewed. These family haulers had...