The Angry Bear

December real retail sales: the good economic news keeps on coming  – by New Deal democrat The good economic news kept coming with this morning’s retail sales report for December. Remember that this is one of my favorite indicators because, adjusted for population, it is a fairly good long leading indicator, and on a short term basis has a consistent record of leading the trend in employment. Nominally retail spending increased 0.6% for the...

Every day brings new of “breakthroughs” in biomedical research. Most of these are incremental advances, and many you never hear about again because they couldn’t be replicated, failed in early clinical trials, or some other problem.But as described in this link from Wired, I think this could be real progress for Parkinson’s therapy research. While I’ve checked for all the known risk alleles in genes like SNCA, PINK1, LRRK2, PARK7, etc. in my genome...

The decline in workers’ share of the total pie is far more extreme than standard measures suggest. Total Income, and the Collapse of the Household Labor Share, Wealth Economics, Steve Roth The best way to start this post is with a graph that many will find surprising, even eye-popping. The graph kind of speaks for itself — pretty dismayingly, especially post-covid. The rest of this post just explains it. This graph answers a question...

Before you read the NPR article, I “will” make a few comments. In no way did the Sacklers not know of the impact of the OxyContin. The sale of it as being non addictive was made up from the get-go of the product. Indeed, one larger than life promotion of OxyContin was done with the misuse of the Jick and Porter letter as taken from The New England Journal of Medicine. In 1980, Doctors Jick and Porter had written a “one-paragraph letter” that...

As a former union member, Reader Denis Drew writes about Labor and Unions. You can read him at Angry Bear from time to time or at his Blog site: “On Today’s Page,” on todays page, Denis Drew. Jimmy Hoffa’s dream – Jimmy Hoffa’s worst nightmare First: Jimmy Hoffa’s medical labor market wet dream:   a) cannot stop technical employees from organizing,   b) demand is everywhere and ever growing   c) bills paid automatically by insurance or...

As vehicles and outdoor appliances become increasingly electric, long term gas usage – and “real” prices – decline  – by New Deal democrat What is the “real” cost of gasoline? When measuring this, some people compare with the CPI. But that actually just tells you the *relative* inflation in gas vs. other items. That’s why, for example, when I want to look at the “real” cost of housing, I measure against income, such as average hourly earnings....

This article is kinda long and also along the lines of what I have done since the mid-seventies. I consulted in throughput for a while. Did not much like it as compared to actually doing it. It is a good piece though. This report is twenty years old and things have changed in China. Modernization has changed its cities and is having an impact outside of them. Been there and seen it multiple times over the years. However, the topic is different than...

My TMU Sustainable Design students on how to fix the world, Carbon Upfront, Lloyd Alter. For about a dozen years, I have taught a one-term course on Sustainable Design at Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU, formerly Ryerson University). It started in the School of Interior Design but has expanded to include students of photography, urban design, fashion, and journalism from the Creative School. Teaching sustainable design is tough; it is...

For MLK Day: Blacks are faring better during the post-pandemic Boom than at almost any time in the previous 50+ years  – by New Deal democrat On this MLK Jr. national holiday, let’s take a look at how Blacks are faring in the current economy. And the answer is, pretty good! The unemployment rate for Blacks in December was the 2nd lowest ever in 50+ years of history, at 5.2%. The lowest was last April at 4.8%: The Black unemployment...

I’m reading Homelands: A personal history of Europe by Timothy Garton Ash. The book is organized by decades, and the decade of 1980-89 was a historically significant one for Central Europe. By the end of the decade, the “communist” dictatorships in Poland, Hungary, East Germany and Czechoslovakia had collapsed.Real history resists simplification, but to simplify, the seemingly permanent division of communist East and capitalist West succumbed to the...