The Angry Bear

We have been playing brinksmanship the last 30 days as to when it is a good time to reduce the Fed Rate taking your foot off the bake so to speak. If you read New Deal democrat’s latest report . . . “The monthly personal income and spending report is now the most important report of all, except for jobs. That’s because it tells us so much about the state of the consumer economy. In short, this was an excellent report (July personal income and...

“FTC Previews Hard Evidence of Harms While Kroger and Albertsons Dangle Unenforceable Promises in Merger Hearing Opening Arguments,” Economic Liberties Kroger and Albertsons Dangle Unenforceable Promises in Merger Hearing Opening Arguments. Noteworthy in Day 1 of the hearing is Kroger uses Albertson’s pricing as the high mark to set its pricing between it and WalMart on the low end. It would seem such a combination of both stores would...

Abolishing the Super Rich is a research piece, a book, and an opinion commentary by Tom Malleson. Associate professor Tom is at King’s University College at Canada’s Western University. Tom gives us a peek into his book entitled Against Inequality: The Practical and Ethical Case for Abolishing the Superrich (2023). The commentary/review of content reads nicely and the professor has his points in a row. Since we are an economics blog which touches...

 – by New Deal democrat The monthly personal income and spending report is now the most important report of all, except for jobs. That’s becuase it tells us so much about the state of the consumer economy. It is the raw material for several important coincident indicators that the NBER looks at, as well as several leading indicators on the spending side. To the numbers: in July nominal personal income rose 0.3%, and spending rose 0.5%. Since...

Wood is a form of natural carbon sequestration. Yesterday, I posted about how wood is making a comeback as a building material. I’ve since found this article announcing that the world’s largest building built (partly) of wood has been greenlit.“Western Australia is set to become home to the world’s tallest timber building, a “revolutionary” 50-storey hybrid design reaching a height of 191.2 metres.Timber will make up 42% of South Perth’s C6 building,...

Medicare Advantage Plans are funded by Traditional Medicare which is slowly being depleted. Much of what MA does which proves to be so costly is due to MA up coding of its patients. It is estimated this will cost an ~$88 billion in 2024. This is up from $80 billion in 2023. Studies have found evidence of upcoding and favorable selection of patients are driving significant overpayments to MA plans. MedPAC also said the program’s quality bonus...

I asked our builder if the water piping was insulated. Nope. Insulation would save on hot water usage and also colder water usage. You can not get cold water in the Summer. And you run the water to get hot water due to no insulation. In AZ, they use PEX tubing for water. PEX is cheaper and just about anyone can install it. Copper takes more skill, is more durable. and can be insulated which saves on costs. “We voted to create tough water...

This is a second hand story about my brother in law’s experience in a Giant (TM) Supermarket checkout line (I guess he should guest post this). He saw someone checking out wearing a Trump Shirt and started a conversation (he’s like that) mentioning that he was voting for Harris. The Trump supporter said that BIden and Harris had accomplished nothing. When my brother in law (politely I’m sure) noted that he disagreed. The Trump supporters (plural...

This is actually related to my day job. For some decades I have been puzzled by two of Kahneman and Tversky’s discoveries (reported very well in this excellent book). First, there is the excessive reliance on diagnostic characteristics (called diagnostic expectations by economists). A classic example is the room with 90 lawyers and 10 engineers. Jim is quiet and hardworking and likes model trains. It is human nature to conclude he is an engineer...

 – by New Deal democrat The news about initial and continuing jobless claims was almost all good this week. Initial claims declined -2,000 to 231,000, and the four-week moving average declined -4,750 to 231,500, the lowest since early June. Continuing claims increased by 13,000 to 1.868 million: As usual, more important for forecasting purposes are the YoY% changes. In that regard, initial claims were down -1.3%, and the four-week moving...