The Angry Bear

by Dale Coberly The bad news is that we have slipped past the day when we could have saved Social Security from ever reporting “short term actuarial insolvency” by raising the payroll tax one tenth of one percent per year (about a dollar per week). This is only sorta bad because it doesn’t really matter . . . sorta. Social Security can still pay ALL promised benefits forever…by raising the payroll tax one tenth of one percent per year. The reason it...

A comment about the economy and the 2020 election Recently I’ve seen a bunch of takes to the effect that “the economy is doing great, and therefore it is likely that Donald Trump will be re-elected.” In my opinion that fear is overblown for three important reasons. The first, least noteworthy reason, is that there is still a lot of time between now and the election. As I noted Monday, many – but not all – models of the economy indicate that a recession...

Twelve Big Picture bullet points on the economy It’s a really slow week for economic data. Really the only important report is new home sales, which will be released Thursday. I’ve been working on a few things, but they are really information-dense and time-consuming to organize, and because they deal with how long leading indicators interact with one another, I’ll probably post them on Seeking Alpha. So in the meantime, let me give you a few hopefully...

Trump Claims Obstruction of Justice is an Official Duty of the White House Tierney Sneed reports on Trump’s latest obstruction of justice: The Justice Department on Monday issued a legal opinion claiming that Congress could not compel former White House Counsel Don McGahn to testify about special counsel Robert Mueller’s report. The opinion was released not long after reports that the White House was planning to instruct McGahn to not comply with a...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for May 13 – 17 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The stock market’s “tariff tantrum” is driving down interest rates in bonds. We are in a time when government policy decisions – sometimes just passing tweets – are driving winners and losers in economic activity. And these can have immediate impact, disrupting the scheme of long leading -> short leading -> coincident indicators...

I have access to too many articles on a daily basis to the point of where I can not read them all much less write on each topic. This particular one emanates from SWI or Swiss Info High Pharma Margins Squeeze Health Systems by Jessica Davis Plüss. The topic? Cancer drug pricing is rising rapidly and margins are exceeding 80% of price according to Swiss Public Television known as RTS. I find it interesting the Swiss are discussing what to do with cancer...

Morehouse College seniors got a surprise Sunday, Billionaire investor Robert F. Smith announced during his commencement speech he would pay off the student-loan debt for the historically black college’s graduating class. Morehouse President David A. Thomas; “The total amount of student loan debt from the 396 students adds up to about $40 million. He called Smith’s gesture “a liberation gift.” Smith: “‘When you have to service debt, the choices about what...

Nancy Pelosi is an able tactician, but a poor strategist. She will not save the Republic A couple of years ago I read Andrew Roberts’ tome on Napoleon. As a schoolboy, Napoleon voraciously inhaled everything he could read about military conflict, including several then-recent books suggesting novel tactics. As a young general, he implemented those tactics to brilliant effect, winning almost every big battle he fought. But if he was a masterful tactician,...