The Angry Bear

So there wasn’t the groundswell of interest in my old axes in comments, so all continued grinding after the jump. Just to recall I stopped after 3 on a list which continued 4) John Kerry is much too stubborn. He won’t admit it when he is wrong. He should be more willing flip flop 5) Al Gore is a bearer of inconvenient truths who deserves much of the credit (or blame) for the existence of the internet 6) Bill Clinton is an ultra wonk who is relatively...

There are too many guns in the USA. If you don’t agree, no need to bother reading on. The market oriented solution is obvious, has no Constitutional problems, and is simple. 1) tax gun production and imports. They don’t grow on trees. A tax of $ 5000 per gun would be useful. Better a higher tax on semi-automatics and a lower tax on shot guns. I don’t give a damn about the risk of depriving poor people of an easy way to kill themselves and each other....

This post is self therapy and probably not worth your time. Outline before the Jump 1) Hillary Clinton is very honest. Too honest 2) Mitt Romney is extremely dishonest. He lies often and without shame. Also he made his money conning ex friends. 3) John McCain was a major flip-flopper 4) John Kerry is much too stubborn. He won’t admit it when he is wrong. He should be more willing flip flop 5) Al Gore is a bearer of inconvenient truths who deserves much...

Lloyd Alter at treehuggers: The only thing that really works for recycling is full producer responsibility. If a producer sells a product, the container is theirs and the contents belong to the customer. This is how it used to work with beer, pop, milk, water for the water cooler, and it is what consumers and producers have to get back to achieve zero waste and a circular economy. California has a long history of calling for deposits on both PET plastic,...

Commom Dreams, Jake Johnson, August 6th, GateHouse Media announced it will purchase Gannett (USA Today, Detroit Free Press, Indianapolis Star, and other major American newspapers). GateHouse Media publishes 144 daily newspapers, 684 community publications, and over 569 local-market websites in 38 states. If approved the result will be a $1.4 billion news conglomerate. Common Cause stated a “combined GateHouse-Gannett entity would own one in every six...

by New Deal democrat Q2 Credit conditions were decidedly mixed Credit conditions are one of my categories of long leading indicators. I track the Chicago indexes weekly, but the more comprehensive Senior Loan Officer Survey only comes out once per quarter. The 2nd Quarter Survey was published earlier this week. I have a post describing what it shows up at Seeking Alpha. As usual, clicking on the link at reading should give you good information, and...

Since the early 1990s, I published this chart every month on the back cover of my publication until I retired a couple of years ago.  I thought it was a great piece of marketing to remind readers that I was a long run bull on interest rates. Readers might not pay much attention or remember claims that I was bullish, but they would pay attention to and remember this.  I even had bond managers walk out over this chart in the middle of my presentation. Now...

Notes on the June JOLTS report: weakness but no imminent downturn I’m still on vacation, so continue to expect light posting. But I thought I’d take a look at the one piece of data that came out this week, the June JOLTS report. First of all, the “hiring leads firing” mantra continues to be true: [Note: data averaged quarterly to cut down on noise.] Interesting that hiring has been essentially flat for a full year, and total separations (“firing”) for...

half showed no signs of a prior, undiagnosed illness.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT), and plainly speaking, they were not mentally ill. Yesterday on Monday morning; President Trump: “Mental illness and hatred pulls the trigger, not the gun. We must reform our mental health laws to better identify mentally disturbed individuals who may commit acts of violence and make sure those people not only get treatment and if necessary, involuntary confinement.” This is...

Trump should not forget that the Chinese leadership does not have to hold an election in 2020. I wonder who this gives an advantage in the trade war.