The Angry Bear

On the topic of Coronavirus and the travel ban, Trump’s travel ban sidesteps his own European resorts. The President’s newly implemented European travel restrictions to the US conveniently side step a ban on nations where three Trump-owned golf resorts are located. No politics there, just plain greed. Trump has been under fire for visiting his properties in both countries as president and using taxpayer money to fund his trips to and from while at his...

This is what exponential growth looks like I’ve placed an added emphasis on high frequency indicators, as they will be the first to show the impact of coronavirus on the economy. This morning chain store sales for last week were reported. They were: – Redbook +6.0% YoY – Retail Economist unchanged w/w, +0.9% YoY Needless to say, there was no impact at all on the Redbook number. While the Retail Economist number was definitely weak, there have been other,...

The present pandemic demonstrates that the global economy is closely tied to consumer spending. Suppose the pandemic is merely a foretaste of the effects of climate change and ecological destruction. Can we fashion a world base on Zero Growth, a Steady State Economy? Zero growth might well entail the following: 1. A fixed and renewal body of resources. 2. A demographic balance, i.e., a fixed population size. Can such an economy enable all of humanity...

This is coming from MEDPAGE TODAY, “Track the U.S. COVID-19 Outbreak in Real Time,” Comments Section (3 comments), March 11, 2020 with regard to  COVID-19 “The mechanism of seasonal effect for seasonal respiratory virus spread is believed to be humidity, not temperature. In New York state which has 220 cases, fomites lose moisture where indoor humidity is low, allowing the lighter particles to stay longer in the aerosol. In Florida and Arizona, with 38...

As of the market close on 11 March 2020 the S&P 500 PE had fallen to 18.2. This makes the market cheap in my valuation model as it has fallen below my fair value band. Moreover, with interest rates still falling to new record lows the fair value band is also rising.  In the chart the fair value band is based on February data while the last PE observation is based on the 11 March 2020 close. But with yields approaching the zero lower band it becomes...

This is not a prediction. Only an observation. From 1952 to 1996, U.S. nominal net worth of households and non-profits tracked nominal GDP pretty closely. Net worth remained pretty close to 15 times GDP. That consistent relationship ended after 1997. In the third quarter of 2007, net worth was nearly 20 times GDP but by the second quarter of 2009 it had reverted to just 17 times GDP. One might argue that it was roughly 15 times what trend GDP would have...

Whatever will I write about on a no-data Monday? I won- WTF????? Yesterday I was wondering what I might write about today, as there is absolutely *no* data being released. And then I woke up and turned on the intertoobs . . . . OK. Deep breaths. For those of you who wonder what the h#/! Is going on, here’s my take. 1. Until resolute government action is taken, the coronavirus situation is going to continue to worsen. As of yesterday, we passed 500 known...

The BSing of the Red Death: and a K.I.S.S. model for the coronavirus pandemic A Reuters/Ipsos poll this past week found that only 2 in 10 Republicans, vs. 4 in 10 Democrats, say the coronavirus poses an imminent threat to the United States. In keeping with that lack of concern, fewer republicans are taking any steps to prepare, such as washing their hands more frequently. Anecdotally, from several GOPers in my neighborhood as well as from the proverbial...