The Angry Bear

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) Rare Yglesias Google Fail (Most boring title after “Worthwhile Canadian Initiative” but I couldn’t resist) Web savvy ultra wonk Matthew Yglesias wrote “There’s no polling on specific brackets or exactly who counts as rich that I can find,” Matty just google [income to be rich poll]. Jeez. Americans have varying ideas of how much money you need to earn each year to be considered “rich,” but most people...

(Dan here…lifted from Robert’s Stochastic Thoughts) A viral ad This ad is clearly designed to go viral also I enjoyed it, so I want to reward them. Notice one aspect of the viral strategy — the ad lasts amazingly long. TV ads are 30 seconds long, because they have to pay for every second. The shame shame shame goes on incredibly long — because youtube doesn’t charge by the second and making a strong impression is key to making people share it or uh copy a...

Massachusetts ACA Enrollment Exceeds Last Year, Charles Gaba, ACA Signups Blog Massachusetts: (January 14, 2018) saw an increased 285,000 signups for healthcare for 2019 which is up 6.6% YOY and with 9 days left until the ACA signup deadline. This comes even though Republicans and Trump have been sabotaging the ACA. Even more impressive, 97.2% (90% National Average) of enrollees have paid their 1st month fees. Republicans and Trump Implement the CSR...

Industrial production: strong finish to 2018 Industrial production for December was reported this morning at +0.3%, slightly better than estimates. But what was really surprising is how strong the manufacturing component was, up over 1%: With this reading, YoY industrial production for manufacturing improved to +3.4%, and overall production came in just below 4%: This is in contrast to the sharp slowdown we saw in both the December regional Fed indexes...

Whatever Happened To Iran? Who? What? Where? Long a headliner in the news, Iran has disappeared from the headlnes, and even the lower pages.  It has largely disappeared from the  news, after being the g=big headline for a long time.  This is probably good for Iran, despite its many flaws. I have made a big effort to find out its current economic status. The little data out there seems to suggest that not much is happening. GDP had been falling in the...

Twenty-two hours ago McConnell posted an op-ed on the Washington Post. If you have not read it and can get into the Washington Post I included a link. If you can not get into the Washington Post; here is a link from the Intelligencer. Formerly of the Washington Monthly, Ed Kilgore takes McConnell to task. Never let it be said that Mitch McConnell can be shamed into silence or introspection. In response to H.R. 1, House Democrats’ new package of campaign...

by New Deal democrat Why I’m expecting a 2nd half rebound in housing In all of the storm und drang about yield curve inversions in the bond market, one important and overlooked consequence is how it is likely to help the very important housing sector. This post is up at Seeking Alpha. As usual, clicking over should be educational for you and helps me with a penny or two.

Notes on the government shutdown I have a post on the housing market pending at Seeking Alpha. If and when it goes up there, I will link to it here. In the meantime, here are a few important notes on the shutdown. I can’t find the quote now, but about a week ago it was floated that Trump could “save face” by declaring an emergency, starting to build the wall, and then allow the government to open. Then Trump indicated that if he declared a state of...

Getting Ever More Surreal I am referring to a comment Sean Hannity made on his show earlier this evening in his monologue. The reports tht  President Trump was under  investigation by FBI Counterintelligence as being a possible “Russian asset” supposedly taking orders from Vladimir Putin has pushed uber Trump defender Hannity to ever more surreal forms of defense, in this case one especially bizarre given the cloase association in Trump’s early career...