The Angry Bear

Here’s a model that didn’t pan out in 2018 A little over a year ago, I proposed A simple model of interest rates and the jobs market. As I explained at the time, “during the past such era of [low interest rates in] 1930-1955 several recessions including the very bad 1938 recession occurred without a yield curve inversion, I have been looking at alternative measures.” What I found was that “a YoY increase in the Fed funds rate equal to the YoY% change in...

Looking for Mister Good Barr I confess. I posted The Barr Letter and Useful Idiots of the Jaded Left to troll for tin-foil hats. I am agnostic on the Mueller investigation. I have never viewed Mueller, Comey or Rachel Maddow as the savior of truth, justice and the American Way. My objection to Taibbi, Greenwald et al.’s gloating is primarily against their premature ejaculation — although their glee is also reprehensible under the circumstances. But here...

by Joseph Joyce Capital Flows in a World of Low Interest Rates Interest rates in advanced economies continue to persist at historically low levels. This trend is due not only to the response of central banks to slow growth, but also fundamental factors. If these interest rates continue close to their current levels, what are the consequences for international capital flows? The decline in rates in the advanced economies has been widely documented and...

by New Deal democrat February housing data indicates slump not over UPDATED Housing data, in the form of February permits and starts, finally caught up after the government shutdown. Two sources of house price data were also released this morning. The bottom line is that, depending on how you measure, housing construction is likely either at or just slightly above a short term bottom. Price growth, meanwhile, continues to decelerate. I have a more...

The Barr Letter and Useful Idiots of the Jaded Left As everyone knows by now, President Trump has been totally “exonerated” for everything, ever, by a four-page letter from William Barr, the Attorney General whom he appointed expressly to “exonerate” him. With regard to potential obstruction-of-justice, on page three of his letter, Barr cited Special Counsel Mueller’s statement that “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a...

Maybe No Conspiracy Or Coordination, But Lots And Lots Of Collusion Trump and his supporters have been loudly claiming that the Barr letter about the Mueller report has shown “no collusion!” which has been shouted loudly from the rooftops, with many supposedly respectable sources such as the New York Times agreeing with this assessment, thus supporting the long running Trump/Hannity repeated claim. But I note that the big headline on this morning’s...

The coming slowdown in employment Last summer I wrote a piece entitled “What the compressed yield curve means for employment.” I re-read it over the weekend, and in light of what has been going on in the bond market, I thought it was worth an update. Let me pretty much re-quote the entire piece: ———— Four times during the 1980s and 1990s the difference in the interest yield between 2 and 10 year treasury bonds got about as low as it is now [Note:...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for March 18 – 22 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. As you can imagine, the big news was about the fact that almost every single yield curve there is – except the one I report on every week in that post – inverted yesterday. Also, as I mentioned in an e-mail to a couple of folks this morning, the big thing that bothers me is that ***EVERYONE*** is watching it. And a forecasting tool...