The Angry Bear

Initial claims mixed, while continuing claims continue “less awful” pandemic recovery trend While this morning’s initial jobless claims increased from last week, they were better than any other readings since the pandemic started. Continuing claims had their “least worst” week yet. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims rose by 52,776 to 891,510, still only the second week under 1,000,000 since the beginning of the pandemic. After...

The UAE-Israel Deal  Several days ago the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Israel have agreed to have diplomatic relations, with this being the third Arab nation to officially recognize Israel, following Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. President Trump and his supporters are claiming that this is a great breakthrough to world peace, with Jared Kushner supposedly the key player on the American side.  But most observers think that this is an exaggeration,...

Why, in the face of the worst US economy since the Great Depression, is the stock market near record highs? As I type this, the S&P 500 is close to setting an all-time record. Last week it came within 0.2% of doing so: All of this in the face of the worst quarterly decline in GDP ever in Q2, and continuing unemployment over 10%. What’s going on? Before I continue further, let me emphasize that I am not giving investment advice, and I do not believe...

I watched most of the convention, and thought it was well done.  My main concern is that most of the arguments made against Trump – and the election will primarily be about Trump, not Biden – were more persuasive to people who are already solid Biden voters.  If you are still thinking about voting for Trump, hearing that he is divisive, authoritarian, and incompetent is unlikely to change your mind.  You’ve heard those arguments a million times. What...

How will the COVID-19 pandemic and the protests over the police murder of George Floyd and other black people affect the political mood in the United States?  The libertarian-leaning economist Tyler Cowen suggested in March that the COVID-19 pandemic would mark the “death of the progressive left.”  It would erode support for key progressive goals, including redistributive economic policies and aggressive action on climate change.  He asked provocatively...

“The 58-year-old captain of the ill-fated Newcastlemax-type bulk carrier WAKASHIO could face negligence charges” after it was discovered the crew was celebrating a crewmember’s birthday  as the ship edged closer to the Mauritius coastline seeking wifi signals just prior to the bulk carrier’s grounding on a reef off the island’s south coast. It appears this is a common practice for ships out to sea weeks at a time and it is done so crews can then pick up...

Save the Post Office is edited and administered by Steve Hutkins, a literature professor who teaches “place studies” at the Gallatin School of New York University. Postmaster General Louis DeJoy has been on the job just two months, but he can already boast of many accomplishments, including these: He has become the subject of a review by the USPS Office of Inspector General concerning allegations of a conflict of interest over his investments and his...

Industrial production and retail sales both improve strongly in July, suggest further gains in employment This Friday morning two important indicators for July, with implications for future employment, were released: retail sales and industrial production. Retail sales for July increased 0.8% on an unadjusted basis. After adjusting for inflation, they rose 0.7%. In the past two months they have completely recovered to higher than their pre-pandemic...

  by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for August 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. There was continued improvement across the time spectrum this week. The underlying story remains the same: the economy “wants” to improve, but that is subject to the course of the pandemic and the continuing political decisions that are being made at both the federal and State levels, in particular the cessation of the $600...

Initial and continuing claims: the most “less awful” so far This Thursday morning’s initial and continued jobless claims continue the trend of “less awful” numbers that resumed last week. New jobless claims, which fell to under 1,000,000 for the first time on an unadjusted basis last week, declined about 150,000 further to 831,856 (red in the graph below), and on an adjusted basis (blue) declined to 963,000, the first time since the pandemic that number...