The Angry Bear

The Susan Collins Excuse I listened very carefully to Senator Collins as she detailed her excuses for letting Brett Kavanaugh become a Supreme Court Justice. Two aspects of her speech were particularly absurd and kind of appalling. Her claims that Kavanaugh is a moderate akin to Justice Stevens were beyond absurd. The most appalling aspect of her speech was how she dismissed the claims that Kavanaugh sexually abused women in high school and/or college:...

Weekly Indicators for October 1 – 5 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. Unsurprisingly, the big story this week was the jump in interest rates. As always, clicking on the link and reading the post is not only informative, but helps put a little cash in my wallet.

As I write, Brett Kavanaugh is not yet a Supreme Court Justice. I assume he will be one soon. I am going to argue that this is the best of the bad possible outcomes. Yes this is making the best of a bad situation and pathetic motivated reasoning. Yes Collins’s speech drove me into an almost insufferable panic and despair (don’t ask me ask, my soon to be ex-wife if I don’t get a hold of myself [by blogging]). Consider this post emergency marriage therapy...

“Lock Her Up!!!” For several years now we have all grown accustomed to the fact that President Trump likes to go to rallies of his supporters where they relentlessly chant the subject head of this post.  It has always referred to his opponent in the presidential election of 2016, the person who got about 3 million more votes than he did, even as he managed to win in the determining electoral college.  While I recognize that Hillary Clinton has many...

Two bits of news from Twitter. The GRU employed 305 morons who have been identified as GRU operatives, because they registered their cars at a GRU office address to intimidate the traffic police. In theory automombile registries are not available to the public. In Russia everything is available for a price. Click the link and read the thread. Yep they are a bunch of corrupt buffoons who probably didn’t manage anything except for hacking the DNC, John...

September jobs report: a mixed report with different implications in different timeframes HEADLINES: +134,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate declined -0.2% from 3.9% to 3.7% U6 underemployment rate rose from 7.4% to 7.5% Here are the headlines on wages and the broader measures of underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  declined -152,000 from 5.379 million to 5.237 million Part time for economic reasons:...

The simple Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator: autumn update While we are waiting for tomorrow’s jobs report, let me update my alternative Fed funds + payrolls leading indicator for the economy, which I debuted earlier this year. This was the result of looking for an interest rate indicator that did not rely upon the yield curve. This indicator is really simple, and what it predicts is, if the Fed fate rises YoY by as much as the YoY% change in jobs...

September auto sales were the worst (economic reporting) in a long time I don’t think I have seen as badly, or worse, outright misleading reporting in a long time as I have seen concerning September auto sales. Almost all of the stories — and especially the Doomish punditry that dominates the clickbait econoblogosphere — have seized on the BIG BIG DOWNTURN!!! in auto sales YoY, varying between a -5.6% decline (“So, all in all it was a lousy month”) to...

by New Deal democrat August residential construction spending declines Yesterday construction spending for August was reported. While overall spending rose very slightly, residential construction fell -0.7%. The big issue with housing this year is whether higher mortgage rates and higher prices are leading merely to a deceleration of growth, or to an actual turning point.  Yesterday’s report adds to the evidence that it is the latter rather than the...