The Angry Bear

Death Comes To My Old Economics Department That would be the one at my alma mater, the University of Wisconsin-Madison.  I have learned that on July 6 one of its current members died, Bill Sandholm, an excellent evolutionary game theorist who was about 50 years old.  It is a sign of my age that he always seemed quite young to me, barely older than my oldest daughter, and now he is dead.  He was a very nice guy, aside from being a very capable economist...

It’s the Economy by Ken Melvin Ask any group of people who have successfully started a small business and to a person, they will tell you that there had been at least once when it could have gone either way. Eight out of ten fail in those perilous first two years. No doubt some of the 80% made fatal mistakes, but how many of them did everything right and still failed? Some of the 20% made what could have been fatal mistakes yet came out smelling like a...

Back to School: As Kayleigh McEnany leaves the podium, White House reporter Brian Karem shouts this question: “Kayleigh, if it’s safe to send people back to schools, is it safe to send Manafort back to prison?” Brian Karem If America’s children can return to school, Roger Stone can keep his date with prison. Janice Clark A letter to Lt. Colonel Vindman:  A birthday wish: Happy 65th birthday to “Lindsey Graham SC” As your Senator, I promise to...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 8: deaths in the South and West finally suggest increasing trend Coronavirus death statistics have been plagued recently by State data dumps, where months of deaths have been released on a single day. In the past 2 weeks, both NJ and NY’s such releases had skewed the numbers. As of today, both are out of the 7 day statistics, so I thought I would update again. One bit of good news, statistics-wise, is that the COVID tracker...

Worrying About November 3, 2020 Sigh.  So the US election is now just four days less than being four months from now, and, really, anything can happen. After all, four days less than four months ago was March 11, just before the US fully recognized that we were in a pandemic, with everything closing, and “the economy falling off a cliff,” as it is now put, but was not obvious on 3/11 at all, even though it was only about two days away.  And the murder...

Coronavirus dashboard for July 7, 2020: deaths as a *very* lagging statistic Total diagnosed US coronavirus cases: 2,928,418 7 day average: 50,135 Total US coronavirus deaths: 122,915 7 day average: 480 The renewed exponential spread of coronavirus cases is continuing. We will probably be over 3 million cases within 48 hours. Including all of the undiagnosed cases (especially in April and May), probably about 2.5%-3% of the entire US population has been...

And we as Democrats did not resist hard enough and gave in to the Republican message. It wasn’t the lack of turnout by black Americans causing Trump to be elected. It was not the failure to vote as the numbers of voters exceeded that of the 2012 election. It was the minority of voters who cast their ballots in the “others” column or as the media calls the “anybody but trump or Clinton” vote which was at a historical high. Many voters bought into the...

Senator Elizabeth Warren has a new bill out to prevent evictions during the COVID-19 crisis.  The bill imposes a 1 year moratorium on evictions nationwide.  That’s it. On its face, the bill seems to have two deficiencies.  First, millions of low-income tenants will be unable to repay their past due rent.  To give them a fresh start we will probably need a streamlined process for consumer bankruptcy filings.  Second, a rent moratorium may trigger a...