The Angry Bear

“…we have seen a calculation… which shows that the fixed charges, for machinery and the general management of a mill, are as nearly as possible equal to the cost of wages in the process.” In my earlier post on the “Wild and Dangerous Scheme” I teased the “egregious accounting error” committed by the author of the 1844 article in the Economist. In plain terms the error was double counting — the author deducts 16.5% from wages to compensate for a decrease...

I want to weigh in briefly on the Biden/Sanders debate that’s been going on here over the past few days. No links, this is a quickie. There are two issues for Democratic primary voters to consider: 1) who will be a better president and 2) who is more electable in a race against Trump. Both questions are hard to answer. It is very difficult to say who would be a better president, even for people on the left of the Democratic party. Presidents have very...

(Dan here…Late to AB posting…what a difference a day or two can make.  Elizabeth Warren has withdrawn from the election process and is not endorsing either Biden nor Sanders at the moment.  Peter weighs in speculating on what is next.) 1. Biden benefitted from a wave of (orchestrated) last minute endorsements. One effect of this wave was to divert attention from Biden the candidate to the endorsers and their combined bandwagon effect. Particular...

I suggest that all of you read Conor Lynch’s piece on TruthDig: Joe Biden Would Be Donald Trump’s Dream Opponent [embedded content] Here are some apt quotations: Biden is a lot like Clinton, but worse in almost every measurable way. On issue after issue, Biden has consistently been to the right of Clinton throughout his fifty-year political career. He has a record of advocating cuts to Social Security and Medicare; he helped write the 1994 Crime Bill that...

The latest news is of Trump again claiming Biden is unfit for office. One can hardly imagine the pot calling the kettle black in this instance. Biden has his issues which were on display early on in his campaign. I am hoping Biden has found his groove and can put the real unfit person out-of-office. August 2019, Trump tweets Joe Biden just said, ‘We believe in facts, not truth.’ Does anybody really believe he is mentally fit to be president? We are...

The DNC is about to nominate a man who has real difficulty completing an intelligent sentence. We are not talking fluffs or an occasional mistake. We are talking about a man who is mentally incompetent. The media will hide the fact. The DNC will protect him as much as possible. For this reason alone, Biden is the weakest possible candidate to face Trump.

 Vehicle sales for February continue to show mixed picture Let’s take a look at February car and heavy truck sales. Putting this in perspective of economic cycles, typically, after housing turns, consumer purchases of vehicles and then other durable goods (like major appliances) turn down. Broader consumer purchases are the last to turn down before a recession. Light vehicle sales in February were estimated by the BEA at 16.7 million annualized (blue in...

“…a scheme at once wild and dangerous.” “…a trick, too, of the clumsiest description…” I was hunting for the exact location of “Prince’s Tavern” in Manchester in 1833 when I stumbled upon an Economist article from March 30, 1844 addressing the “practical consequences” of  reducing the length of the factory working day from 12 hours to 10. I am always fascinating by the profound and enduring hostility of a faction of employers — amplified by their...

US consumers . . . still consuming Aside from sitting around twiddling our thumbs waiting for partial motor vehicle sales from February to be reported later, there’s no economic news of note today. But Tuesday mornings each week we do get chain store sales from the previous week. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know that I have been paying particular attention to these for signs that the producer downturn is spreading to consumers. That has...