The Angry Bear

A curious coincidence is that the US midterm elections happened one day after the US reimposed its second round of illegal economic sanctions on Iran, with the focus on oil, shipping, and banking, along with some other sectors. Despite all but a handful of governments around the world supporting Iran in this matter (despite apparently two attempted assassinations of opponents of Iran’s government in European nations recently) against the US out of a hope...

[embedded content]Tom MacArthur a multimillionaire former insurance broker who negotiated the House legislation to repeal the ACA taken to the wood shed by a constituent. Tom MacArthur met with his constituents in a Town Hall meeting and he listened to them and took the abuse he rightfully deserved. Mike Bishop consistently refused to meet with his constituents face to face in a havey Republican District. People were angry and we needed the right...

Via VOX comes this noteworthy WH official attempt to propogandize: Press secretary Sarah Sanders shared an altered video (italics mine) on Wednesday evening that appears to have originated with far-right conspiracy site Infowars to justify banning CNN reporter Jim Acosta from the White House after a tense exchange with President Donald Trump. … When Trump insulted Acosta at the press conference, a White House intern approached him and tried to physically...

Setting markers for a 2019 slowdown in the jobs market How might a slowdown (not a recession, but a decline in growth to the 1%-2% YoY range in GDP) that I’ve been forecasting for around midyear 2019 manifest itself in the employment arena? One of my mantras is that “hiring leads firing.” In other words, companies slow or stop their hiring plans, or cut back on hours, before they actually start laying people off. So, one natural place to look is the...

Final thoughts on the 2018 midterms Here are six takeaways from last night’s results: 1. It *was* a wave election in the popular vote, but it was blunted by gerrymandering: Here’s a tweet by Sam Wang: Even though Democrats won the popular vote by 9.2%, they only eked out 12 seats over a majority, and came about 4 seats short of Nate Silver’s median projection: By contrast, in 2010, a smaller vote advantage led to a 63 seat gain for the GOP....

Trump’s final pre-midterm job approval As promised, following up on yesterday’s post, here is Gallup’s final Trump job approval rating, as of the last weekend before Election Day: At very least, it sure looks like his fear-mongering about immigrants hasn’t helped, and it may have backfired. I will blog on the election results tomorrow night. Regular economist blogging should resume Wednesday. ...

(Dan here…better a bit late than ….) by Barkley Rosser Monday Before The Midterms And WaPo Is At It Again It is Robert J. Samuelson doing his usual schtick, albeit with some recognition of other issues, such as global warming and immigration.  But these are not what has his prime attention on the day before midterm elections in the US.  Moaning that “Everyone” will lose this election, his main focus is on the budget deficit, without a single mention of...

A message with beauty. Listen to Mama Cass and John Denver talk about the need to register and vote in  August of 1972.  Gee, what was happening then? Maybe this vote will be the one that sets us on a path to not repeat history. Maybe. Enjoy the song.[embedded content]

From an interview on NPR’s Here and Now comes: “The official actuaries of the Social Security system say in order to get our Social Security and retirement funds in balance, they’d have to cut benefits by 25 percent indefinitely into the future,” he says. “Do I think it’s going to happen? Well I don’t know, but this is one of the reasons why inflation is the major problem out there. So long as you don’t do it, you’re going to cause the debt overall — the...