The Angry Bear

From SWI, Swiss news: Switzerland’s House of Representatives has rejected an initiative by the right-wing Swiss “People’s Party” to limit immigration and cancel a deal with the European Union on the free movement of people. Albert Rösti, head of the Swiss People’s Party warns that “uncontrolled” immigration could increase the current 8.5 million Swiss population to ten million and place additional pressure on infrastructure and the environment. It also...

Spoiler alert:  maybe. The surprising success of Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential bid, widespread protests against Trump, and the election of a number of highly progressive candidates in the 2018 midterms all seem to suggest a progressive turning point in American politics.  At the very least, the intellectual stranglehold of right-wing economic ideas on our political discourse seems to have been broken.  Progressive proposals for Medicare for All, a...

New analysis of 1999-2017 firearm deaths looks at changes in each state and within age, gender and racial/ethnic groups Nationally, firearm-related mortality rates increased in period 2015–2017 after remaining relatively stable in period 1999–2014. Firearm mortality increases can be seen in “most” states and the demographics to the mortality seen in varying degrees. The increases suggest a worsening epidemic of firearm mortality geographically and...

Everybody’s Talkin’ ‘Bout Taxes–especially Wealth Taxes and Mark-to-Market of Capital Gains Not surprisingly for those of you who are members of the ABA Tax Section, there is a meeting of that group next week in Florida when a thousand tax lawyers (give or take a few) will be talking about everything from basis to wealth taxes; GILTI, BEAT, Dual BEIT, to EITC.  Yours truly will be on a panel of the Tax Policy and Simplification Committee, meeting Friday...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for January 20 – 24 at Seeking Alpha I neglected to post this yesterday…. My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.  The forecasts remain as they have been recently, but there are several developments in the long leading range. As usual, clicking over and reading brings you fully up to date, and rewards me a little bit for my efforts.

for Downplaying Brain Injuries Suffered from Iranian Attack, CNN, Veronica Stracqualursi, January 2020 It is bad enough for trump to have evaded the draft multiple times giving heel spurs as a reason for doing so; but here we are and now, trump can tell us what is a serious injury and what is not. If he would just shut up, which will not happen, things might settle down. As it goes, anything to deflect and get the attention off of impeachment....

Local Climate Policy Run Amok, Bellingham Edition Earlier this month the New York Times ran a story about Bellingham, Washington, a picturesque town that looks out across Puget Sound to the San Juan Islands. Bellingham is home to Western Washington University, but rational thought is in short supply when it comes to climate activism. What got the country’s attention is a proposal before the city council to require all homeowners to switch from natural...

On the road Today  (Dan here….Jan. 23) is a traveling day, so no detailed posting. This morning’s initial jobless claims were in line with the range over the past two years. There has been virtually no change YoY. This negatives any imminent recession fears. Yesterday’s existing home sales, though touted as “the best in nearly two years,” just continue the baseline that this metric has been in since late 2015, with the exception of the 2018 decline. Of...

by New Deal democrat The producer vs. consumer sectors of the economy: a comparison I have a post up at Seeking Alpha, comparing current conditions on the producer side of the economy vs. the consumer side. As usual, clicking over and reading should bring you up to date on the “nowcast,” and helps put a $ or two in my pocket.

Why negative transportation indexes don’t support a recession call Every month for at least the past half year there is a spate of bearish economic commentary that relies upon one or both of two metrics: AAR rail carloads and/or the Cass Freight Index. I have a post up at Seeking Alpha showing why the first measure is not a representative slice of transport as a whole, and the second has a history of being very volatile and with a slew of negative...