The Angry Bear

Distractions,  Distractions Wow!  We have a great controversy!  A squib of a memo by the House Intel Comm has completely devoured the media.  A constitutional crisis!  Egad!  In two weeks, or maybe two months, it will be nothing.  But for now, well, very very very serious. At a minimum it has distracted everybody from Trump’s gloriously successful State of the Union speech, which was so well received until this distraction that he thinks will bring about...

Via Naked Capitalism: In a scoop, Business Insider reports on how Amazon is creating massive turnover and pointless misery at Whole Food by imposing a reign of terror impossible and misguided productivity targets. Anyone who has paid the slightest attention to Amazon will see its abuse of out of Whole Foods workers as confirmation of an established pattern. And even more tellingly, despite Whole Foods supposedly being a retail business that Bezos would...

About that Trump wage boom Over last weekend, I read a bunch of notes which indicated that Trump was claiming credit for a boom in wage growth. Let’s take a look: THIS is a wage boom: In the 1960s, real wages grew by almost 9% over 7 years, an average of 1.3% per year. THIS is also a wage boom: In the late 1990s, real wages grew by just over 9% in 7 years, again averaging 1.3% per year. This is NOT a wage boom: During the...

What’s behind the big Q4 decline in real median weekly wages? [Note: This is a post I was working on last week. I hypothesized that the employment cost index would validate the analysis. Well, I didn’t get around to posting it, and the ECI came out this morning. So, how did I do? ] Last week the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that real weekly median wages declined by over 2% in the 4th quarter of last year!  This is quite the anomaly in the face of...

Lawrence Summers on Those Employee Bonuses – a Redux of the 1990’s? Lawrence Summers made an interesting comments during a CNBC interview: Former Treasury Secretary and Obama administration economic advisor Larry Summers said Friday that recent employee bonuses are stunts and not reflective of long-term hopes for prosperity that tax cuts are supposed to bring. “I think it’s a gimmick,” Summers told CNBC’s “Squawk Alley.” “I think in many cases the firms...

Angry Bear maintains its status as one of FocusEconomics Top Economics and Finance Blogs of 2018. Econospeak is on the list as well, whose authors contribute to Angry Bear. Angry Bear The Angry Bear blog is a multi-author blog that covers news, politics and economics. The contributors to the blog are some of the best in the business such as emeritus professors, tax law experts, historians, business consultants, economics PhDs, finance professionals and...

Is the economy partying like it’s 1999 ? Suddenly I have a lot to say about the economy. My sense is that we are on to a new phase after the 2015 shallow oil-patch centered recession and 2016-17 rebound. The data has a feel to it of a late cycle blowoff. Let’s start with this morning’s personal income and spending.  In the last 4 months, personal consumption expenditures, like retail sales, have taken off: Typically after mid-cycle personal...

I thought this was a nice brief on where the economy is and the lies of the republicans currently.  Considering the show that will be put on tonight. [embedded content] Testing the White House Economic Claims

The Black Unemployment Rate  Josh Marshall listens to Donald Trump so we do not have to: President Trump has been out bragging that “because of my policies” the African-American unemployment rate has dropped to its lowest level ever. This appears to be technically true. But I thought it made sense to give some context for the nonsensical nature of this claim. As you can see, the idea that this is “because of my policies” is a bit hard to square with the...