The Angry Bear

  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...

The End Of Special Fiscal Stimulus  A week ago a two week long negotiation between Dem Congress people, Nancy Pelosi from the House and Chuck Schumer from the Senate and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who cut deals with Pelosi and Schumer three times earlier this year, but now Trump’s Chief of Staff, former Freedom Caucus leader in the House, Mark Meadows, notorious for only destroying deals and never making any. And in this case, all the reporting is...

Contributor to Save The Post Office and Angry Bear blogs, Mark Jamison was interviewed and featured on Richard French Live, also can be seen on Meet the Press hosted by Chuck Todd, and later CNN. In this RFL YouTube, Mark gives all the reasons why we should be concerned with trump and Louis DeJoy tampering with the USPS and mail-in ballots.[embedded content]President Trump has been attempting to sow the seeds of doubt before Election Day without evidence...

WWII was America’s finest hour. Before that, her multitude of sins had always been covered up by her bounty of natural resources, her yet unsettled land, … her offer of opportunity. There was room to grow, chances for people to start over, … In the lead up to, and during, the War, America stepped up. Then, the situation was well defined. Usually, it’s hard to discern what is going on at a given time; what is going on ‘now’. Before the War, we sometimes...

“Trump ally making ‘high-risk’ changes at USPS, says former postal service deputy,” The Guardian, Sam Levine, August 12, 2020 I received a message from former NC Postmaster Mark Jamison and Angry Bear contributor about a brief interview he did with The Guardian for part of its story on the changes being done at the USPS by the new Postmaster General. A former top official at the United States Postal Service (USPS) has warned about recent Louis DeJoy...

Prof. Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor is also the founder of the blog Informed Comment. Professor Cole writes on international issues. Angry Bear has featured Prof. Cole from time to time. “Lebanon’s Leaders Resign over deaths of 200, but Trump refuses Accountability for 163,462 Deaths;” Informed Comment, Juan Cole, August 11, 2020 Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Monday, the prime minister...

Coronavirus dashboard for August 10: some good news to balance the bad Total US cases:  5,060,880 Average last 7 days: 52,393/day Total US deaths: 154,947 Average last 7 days: 1,045/day Source: COVID Tracking Project Let’s take a look at some good news as well as continued bad news today. First, the bad news. Here are the top 10 States for coronavirus infections: And here are the top 10 States for deaths: Note that with the exception...

July inflation consistent with early recovery; no compelling evidence of wage deflation Yesterday morning July consumer prices were reported to have increased 0.6% for the second month in a row (as did core inflation, ex-food and energy): As a result, YoY inflation has increased to 1.0%: The widespread price increases are signs of increased demand, which in these circumstances is a good thing. In the past, deflationary recessions, most notably...