The Angry Bear

Real retail sales continue flat in January; production sector still in recession Retail sales increased nominally by +0.3% in January, while December was revised downward by -0.1%, for a net gain of +0.2%. Since consumer inflation increased by +0.4% during those two months, real retail sales were unchanged.  On a per capita basis, they declined less than -0.1%. This means that neither real retail sales, and real retail sales per capita have made new highs...

Engel Criticizes Trump On Soleimani Assassination Juan Cole reports that House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair, Eliot Engel (D-NY) has criticized the administration for its assassination of Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in response to a report fresh out of the DOD that said the attack was for past activities by Iran in attacking tankers and oil facilities in Saudi Arabia without any mention of a threat against US personnel in Iraq, the ostensible...

Live-blogging the Fifteenth Amendment: February 9, 1869 (2) The Senate votes to reform the Electoral College As I mentioned several days ago, the Senate endured a pair of marathon sessions on February 8 and 9, 1869, and considered a variety of subjects. Perhaps most breathtakingly, they discussed further amending the Constitution to ensure that the winner of the popular vote was elected President. Sen. Morton [Republican, Indiana]: I desire to renew the...

Despite protestations to the contrary, the Gods are not interested in any of its proclaimed stakeholders, be it labor, the environment, or climate change. As they did in 2007, they still sing the same old tired tunes, blindly pursuing profits at the expense of the health of the globe and of its citizens. In the World Economic Forum of 2007, Professor Klaus Schwab, proudly announced: “In today’s increasingly interconnected and complex world….Climate...

I am not a lawyer, but I think lawyers agree that grand juries are a pointless relic of the middle ages. There’s nothing to be done, because they are mentioned in the 5th amendment, but they are silly. Over here east of the English Channel they don’t exist. Decisions about possible indictments are made by judges. One problem with grand juries is that the prosecutor is the only lawyer allowed in the room (unless a witness happens to be a lawyer). Also,...

This doctor is a bit much; but, he gets a point across which I have been making also. The issue(s) Dr. ZDogg  is describing about what commercial healthcare insurance is doing, Medicare Advantage plans, hospitals, and now doctors are doing needs to be told over and over again. Schumer and the Senate have to release the portion of the House Budget bill that dealt with Surprise billing. [embedded content] ZDoggMD reacts to ridiculous medical bills, MedPage...

Have we reached “full employment”? An update As an initial matter, this morning’s initial and continuing jobless claims report were positive as to all metrics by which I judge them. They are near the bottom of their recent ranges and/or are lower YoY (lower being good). I’ll add a graph once the info is available at FRED.  UPDATE: Here it is: Here is something I haven’t updated in a couple of months: given recent gains in labor force participation...

Where is the puzzling growth in service jobs coming from? Continuing with my week of follow-up stories based on last Friday’s jobs report, I noted last Friday that there was a completely anomalous upwards revision of nearly 100,000 jobs in the last 8 months of 2019. This after a -500,000 decrease, based on full data, in the previous 12 months! So I took two approaches: a bottoms-up micro view, and a top-down macro view — and got contradictory answers....

What to Do about Amazon I think Farhad Manjoo gets it right about Amazon: while the company’s sheer size, not to mention its often shady business practices, call out for public intervention, “Amazon is pushing a level of speed, convenience, and selection in shopping that millions of customers are integrating into their daily lives.” Breaking it up would be wrong, since the essence of what Amazon offers is its potential universality.  For me, shopping on...