The Angry Bear

The US economy appears to be emerging from the recent recession (pace the Fed interest rate decisions). There’s a general consensus that that recession was largely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and consequent supply chain disruptions. What lessons might be learned on how to maximally blunt the impact of future pandemics while minimizing negative economic consequences?Here’s a cross-sectional analysis including all 50 US states plus the District of...

– by New Deal democrat Continuing my catching up this week, let’s take a look in some further detail about why I didn’t think Friday’s jobs report portended recession – at least, not yet. As I always point out, the jobs report does contain some leading numbers. These are generally employment in more cyclical industries that, when they turn down, start the cascade into the broader economy. Generally speaking, these are all goods-producing...

There’s a lot of attention being paid these days to EVs and solar power, but there are plenty of other ways to decarbonize human activity. Public transportation is one. I’m certainly no stranger to public transportation. I didn’t have a car in college, so when I visited my grandmother in Johnstown or my sister in Philadelphia, I took the Greyhound. When I visited my folks in Manhattan, I got around by subway. My wife and I didn’t have a car in grad...

Commentary by Robert Reich popped up today in my mailbox. It is interesting to read. Apparently, Joe Biden’s appointment to the FTC is taking on corporate entities who have great influence in their portion of the economy. Or what Angry Bear and myself would call big business monopolies. The courts agreed with FTC’s Lina Khan, that Google is a monopoly. This occurrence you can read for yourself below. It was suggested big money donners to...

by r.j. sigmund  FLiRT variants no one seems to be talking about it, but Covid is worse than ever, even if it’s not as deadly . . . among the CDC’s “early indicators“, “test positivity”, or the percentage of tests for Covid that were positive, rose to 16.3% during the week ending July 27th, up from 14.3% the prior week, and up from 3.4% nine weeks ago . . . test positivity is now the highest it’s been in 2 1/2 years . . . at the same time,...

Here’s Where VP Pick Tim Walz Stands on Healthcare Issues, MedPage Today Presidential nominee Kamala Harris has chosen Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) as her running mate. Here’s a look at Walz’s track record on healthcare. I am not going to call Kamala a Democrat although we all know she is of that political lean. I believe Kamala will represent all people including Republicans. Sixty-year-old Tim Walz was first elected Governor of Minnesota in...

Credit conditions in Q2 improved, and are typical of an economy having come *out* of a recession, not going in to one  – by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey, the premier quarterly measure of the loose- or tight-ness of bank lending, was published yesterday for Q2. And since lending conditions are a long leading indicator for the economy, and several of the metrics contained in this release have a good and lengthy track record,...

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Hiroshima bomb. I grew up in Oak Ridge, TN, a city that was founded in secret for the purpose of enriching uranium for atomic bombs. The Hiroshima bomb was a uranium fission atomic bomb. The idea of immolating thousands of civilians was not novel at that point. See, e.g., the Dresden and Tokyo firebombings. Hiroshima was certainly a valid military target.One counterfactual argument is that, had the nuclear bombings...

Finally, some or most of Congress may do something to Rein in SCOTUS and the rogue Justices. The question here being can they nullify Congress’s act in some fashion. No Kings Act WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer introduced legislation Thursday reaffirming that presidents do not have immunity for criminal actions, an attempt to reverse the Supreme Court’s landmark decision last month. Schumer’s No Kings Act would...

The advent of CAR-T and CRISPR technologies are set to revolutionize cancer and genetic disease therapies, respectively. But with great hope comes great costs. “The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that approximately 100,000 people in the US have sickle cell disease, making it the most prevalent inherited blood disorder. Remarkably, the new gene therapies offer very promising early efficacy: exa-cel and lovo-cel demonstrated 93.5%...