The Angry Bear

Arthur Dahlberg Pop-Up [embedded content]

What happens when you downsize a large number of people? Well, it depends on the cohort downsized. In this case, [embedded content] That’s correct; Average Hourly Earnings skyrocketed from $28.67 to $30.01: up $1.34. For context, that one-month change matches the average hourly earnings growth from September/October of 2018 until March of this year–18 months of increases in a month. And all it took was eliminating the jobs of about 6% of the U.S....

by Ken Melvin What to do About The Schools There needs to be a plan in place that deals with: grade levels, Covid Virus testing, schedules, classroom size, in-school traffic flow patterns, staffing, transportation, …  The how and when are tied together. And yes, all these are interconnected. How to safely get 3,000 high school students to and from school; from class to class; to, into and out of classrooms; to, into and out of the cafeteria; … ...

Via Truthout is a reminder the US Supreme Court has rulings to make: On May 12, the Supreme Court will have an opportunity to rebuke or endorse Trump’s pretensions to monarchical grandeur when it hears oral arguments in three cases that have the potential to redefine the nature and scope of presidential power. The cases before the court are Trump v. Mazars USA, LLP; Trump v. Deutsche Bank AG; and Trump v. Vance. In the first two, the president is trying...

National Geographic published this.  This seems to be an unusual topic for that publication and I wonder why Fauci selected  it. Fauci: No scientific evidence the coronavirus was made in a Chinese lab The rest is copied exactly from National Geographic Fauci, the director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, shot down the discussion that has been raging among politicians and pundits, calling it “a circular argument” in a...

bu Dale Coberly WHAT THE TRUSTEES REPORT REALLY MEANS REALLY “DOING THE MATH” [a few years ago the word “du jour” among journalists about SS was “it’s the math.” Of ourse none of them actually did the math.] [note: i use the tax rate for each the worker and the employer because this is what the worker “sees” and it is what the employer sees. It is also the legally correct division. The Trustees Report usually combines the separate tax rates into one...

What Is the Shape Of This Cycle As A Letter: V, L, W, J, U, Or Maybe A Lazy J or Wiggly W? For some time now it has become commonplace for people to describe business cycles by how they resemble one letter or another, although obviously this amounts to a lot of hand waving. But it does provide bright images.  Thus Trump and crew seem to believe that the US will experience a V recovery, one that will boom up as rapidly as it fell down, so the sooner we...

We desperately need to increase our capacity to test for COVID-19, to trace contacts, and to produce masks and other forms of personal protective equipment.  This will allow us to keep the virus under control and to cautiously re-start economic activity as we await development of a vaccine.  Unfortunately, President Trump has made it clear that he will not lead a mobilization against the virus.  His goal is simply to avoid blame for failures. Congress...

About a month ago I wrote on the COVID 19 plight of the Navajo Indians in New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. New Mexico Governor Lujan Grisham requested military field hospitals to be set up to handle the fast moving virus. Trumps comment was, “Wow, that’s something.” The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Federal Emergency Management Agency together constructed three reservation field hospitals to be used as alternative care sites according to the tribe earlier...