The Angry Bear

Is Doing Environmental Economics Especially Depressing? We have now learned that on Aug. 27 last week Matin Weitzman hanged himself, leaving a note citing his failure to share in last year’s Nobel Prize as well as his apparently declining mental acuity.  That prize he did not share included William Nordhaus as a recipient for his work on climate economics issues, a topic that Weitzman also worked on, arguably more deeply and originally than did...

August jobs report: for once, the underwhelming headline masked very good internals HEADLINES: +130,000 jobs added (+105,000 ex-Census) U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose 0.2% to 7.2% Leading employment indicators of a slowdown or recession   I am highlighting these because many leading indicators overall strongly suggest that an employment slowdown is coming. The following more leading numbers in the report tell us about...

by Joseph Joyce Is Inflation a Global Phenomenon? The persistence of inflation at relatively low rates despite years of monetary stimulus has led to wide-ranging investigations into its determinants. Traditionally the rate of inflation has been linked via a Phillips curve relationship to domestic factors, such as slack in the labor market. But is there also a global element? Maurice Obstfeld, who has returned to UC-Berkeley from his post as chief...

Two sharply contrasting reports on the economy to start September We got two contrasting views of the economy this morning. (Tuesday) First, the good news: residential construction spending increased in July. Below I show it in comparison with single family permits: Typically construction follows permits. In the past few years, it has been almost coincident with permits. This is more good news for the important and leading housing sector, indicating...

Figure 1 Via mashable: Alaska’s exceptional summer continues. The most rapidly changing state in the U.S. has no sea ice within some 150 miles of its shores, according to high-resolution sea ice analysis from the National Weather Service. The big picture is clear: After an Arctic summer with well above-average temperatures, warmer seas, and a historic July heat wave, sea ice has vanished in Alaskan waters. “Alaska waters are ice free,” said Rick Thoman, a...

Voters who are paying a lot of attention to the race are much more to support Elisabeth Warren than voters who are paying little or no attention. It is also true that voters who are paying a lot of attention are more likely to support Joe Biden than Elisabeth Warren. Finally, Voters who are paying a lot of attention are somewhat less likely to support Bernie Sanders than are voters who are paying little or none. If you don’t see an image cut and pasted...

Does O’Rourke Have The Trade Strategy For Dems Against Trump? I have been posting here periodically on how it seems that the Dems do not seem to have a strong or well-defined position about Trump’s trade wars that seem politically effective or even coherent.  The few candidates who have made noise about essentially returning to Obama’s policy, e.g. Hickenlooper, have done so poorly they are dropping out or at least not in the 10 making the next debate...

The Hurricane/Picture of Dorian Gray: A Perfect Moral Storm in Three Texts Andreas Malm, Fossil Capital: The temporal aspect is particularly striking,’ writes philosopher Stephen Gardiner, who has done perhaps more than anyone to foreground it, in A Perfect Moral Storm: The Ethical Tragedy of Climate Change: it catches us in a bind. Given that global warming is ‘seriously backloaded’ (every moment experiencing a higher temperature posted from the past)...