The Angry Bear

[embedded content]H/T: When I woke up.. blog. Everything you don’t know that you don’t know.. Former Deputy Postmaster General Ron Stroman was on MSNBC with Nicolle Wallace. His take on the Senate hearing yesterday, the delays going on at the Postal Service, and the risks for voting by mail is fantastic. Stroman believes that there is a ‘significant question’ whether delays in mail are intentional, and he expresses concerns over the disenfranchisement of...

The customer goes online and chooses a face mask from those listed on the USPS Web Page and places an online order. Their order goes direct to the factory making the mask of choice where it is filled within minutes or less and dropped in the on-site USPS bin that is picked up several times a day. The USPS then delivers the order to the customer. The USPS could enhance its revenue stream by charging a very small fee for advertising on its Web Page...

Here you go! 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. Prof. Hutkins (Steve) is the author of this commentary. (Angry Bear Blog has had a long relationship with both authors Steve Hutkins and Mark Jamison both of whom author the “Save The Post Office Blog.”) Everyone knows the mailing has been slowing down. News reports are filled with...

Real personal income, spending, and consumer sentiment for July July personal income and spending were reported this morning. Since real personal income drives one important election model, I have been waiting to see if July would reflect the end of the emergency Congressional assistance. It didn’t. Real personal income rose less than 0.1% in July. While it is down by -6% from April, it is up a huge 7.1% from July 2019. Real disposable and Per Capita...

by New Deal democrat Weekly indicators for August 24 – 28 at Seeking Alpha  My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The economy as a whole is being driven by lower interest rates, unprecedented Fed supply of new money, stock market gains, and – through July – the Congressional emergency stimulus and unemployment benefits. This is still showing up in all indicator timeframes. It took a few weeks for the effects of the pandemic lockdowns to show...

Jobless claims slowly continue to get “less worse,” while longer term deadweight loss builds The good news in this morning’s jobless claims report is that the trend of “less worse” news continues. The bad news is that the improvement has slowed to a snail’s pace, at levels worse than the worst levels of the Great Recession. On a non-seasonally adjusted basis, new jobless claims declined by 68,038 to 889,549, a new pandemic low. After seasonal adjustment...

More evidence that housing has roared back This morning we got the final important July housing reports: new home sales and house prices. New single home sales are very volatile and heavily revised, so it is always wise to take the initial report with a grain of salt. On the other hand, it is the most leading of all the reports. With that caveat, this morning’s report of 901,000 sales annualized is the highest reading since December 2006! It is also in...

Some Interesting stuff from the One handed Economist David Zetland. The Truth Is Paywalled But The Lies Are Free A continuing conversation on the lack of diversity in economics An AI explains human intelligence Tech firms are worth so much because they have monopoly power? A good interview with Kate Raworth on Doughnut economics. She talks about “change” but doesn’t usually explain the tools (besides “be nice”) but those are discussed here. Jason Hickel...

Kevin Drum argues that he is: One of the key questions raised by Donald Trump’s 2016 victory has been whether he represents a new turn in American politics or merely a blip who will be quickly forgotten if he loses in 2020. Over the past four years I’ve spent a lot of time reviewing the evidence about this, and the conclusion I’ve come to is pretty simple: Trump is a blip. Let’s back up a bit. For a very long time Democrats have believed that demographics...