The Angry Bear

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Mortgage rates probably have to top 5% to tip housing into a recession-leading downturn I’ve pointed out many times that, generally speaking, mortgage rates lead home sales. It’s not the only thing — demographics certainly plays an important role — but over the long term interest rates have been very important. I have run the graph comparing mortgage rates to housing permits many times. In the graph below, I’m using a slightly different housing metric —...

(Dan here….another one from NDd) My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The old vaudeville sketch comes to mind: “Niagara Falls.  Slowly I turn. Step by step ….” Not only are these weekly posts intellectually edifying, but since clicking over and reading it puts a penny in my pocket, it is the epitome of polite etiquette.

Mush versus Mush on Climate Change The very long New York Times piece on climate change politics in the 1980s by Nathaniel Rich has attracted a lot of critical commentary—justifiably.  To say that the failure to achieve a political response was due to human nature, a genetic defect that prevents our species from planning ahead, is just lazy and wrong.  Were the scientists, environmentalists and other activists that did want to take action a bunch of...

Rude Tipping How to torment the wait staff for their tip. A fun game to play on a night out with your wife or friends. The diner shared the experience on Facebook claiming his methods resulted in “the best service experienced.” Explaining at the beginning of the meal, he would place five single dollar bills on the table for the server to see and not say anything to them. If they messed up, he would take a dollar away and so on. At the end of the dinner,...

[embedded content] How to stay awake for economics!

Via Truthout: In every community, there are nonprofit charities that serve real needs: local food pantries, programs addressing the opioid crisis, the Red Cross chapters that come to our aid after a storm. Charities provide vital services to the people and places they serve. These organizations lean heavily on volunteers, fundraisers, and donors. And most ordinary donors give without consideration of a tax break — people give their time, treasure, and...

When the second quarter real GDP report was published I saw that trade made a major contribution to growth — exports contributed 1.12 percentage points of the 4.1% real GDP growth.  But that seemed like some sort of fluke produced by unusual conditions rather that what trend growth would generate.  Moreover, the BEA estimate was based on only two months actual data and the other month was a BEA “guesstimates”.  So new data was quite likely to generate...

I do not know what generation Maxwell Strahan of Huffpost is of; but if he is of the Millennials, he has it correct in his HuffPost article. . . “The Greatest “Crisis of My Generation is Now a Dystopian Show.” The crisis? Student Loan debt, the penalties associated with it, and the inability to declared bankruptcy are the greatest crises facing younger generations and will also be for this nation when millions of them default. The Show? “Paid Off!”...