The Angry Bear

Hope Lives: Pressing Collins and Corker and Flake on Tax Bill The Republicans’ proposed tax legislation–whether the House or Senate version–is despicable.  It will exacerbate the already devastating income and wealth inequality in this country, leave the federal government without adequate funds for real infrastructure and social safety net needs, and place in almost inviolable power the wealthiest oligarchs of the country (and even the good ones exert...

The August and September hurricanes continue to make their impacts felt in the economic data.  Yesterday’s JOLTS report for October, like the October and November jobs reports, shows a rebound from those impacts.  The best way to look at the data is to average the last two months (and this will be true for the next JOLTS report as well, which will be best viewed by averaging all three months).Let’s start as usual by updating the disconnect between...

Hey: AP Press at 10:23 PM EST declares Jones the winner in Alabama.

Via the International Monetary Fund: Income inequality among people around the world has been declining in recent decades. But the news is not all good. Inequality within many countries has increased, particularly in advanced economies. In addition to income inequality, wealth inequality—what you have accumulated, as opposed to what you earn—is closely related, and reflects differences in savings, inheritances, and bequests. In our Chart of the Week from...

The End Of The “Islamic State.” There are two aspects of this debate, one about the term, “Islamic State,” and the other about the its application. So, until about a month ago the entity calling itself ” al-Dawla al Islamiyya fi al-Iraq wa al Sham(s),” was claiming to be the most important Muslim political entity in the world, the center of its “Caliphate” which claimed to be the only legitimate and supreme ruler and polltical state for the entire...

Its been my observation that a surprising amount of research education sucks, either focusing on irrelevant trivia or desperately avoiding logic and common sense at all costs. Every so often, though, you come across something well written and cogent. Here are the first two paragraphs of an article that comes close: Racial-, ethnic-, and language-minority schoolchildren in the United States have repeatedly been reported to be overidentified as disabled and...

This has become a total mess and I moved my algebra over to my personal blog. The point is that the whole discussion depends on the difference in the long term effect of a cut in a tax on capital income on revenue collected from old capital and the effect ofa cut in a tax on capital on revenue collected from old capital. This is an extremely uninteresting issue.

November Jobs Report: good month, same caveats HEADLINES: +228,000 jobs added U3 unemployment rate unchanged at 4.1% U6 underemployment rate rose +0.1% from 7.9% to 8.0% Here are the headlines on wages and the chronic heightened underemployment: Wages and participation rates Not in Labor Force, but Want a Job Now:  rose +53,000 from 5.175 million to 5.238 million Part time for economic reasons: rose +48,000 from 4.753 million to 4.801 million...

Lifted from comments Denis Drew points us to: Americans are drowning in debt. Here’s where they have it the worst. By Christopher Ingraham, December 8 at 1:58 PMhttps://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/12/08/americans-are-drowning-in-debt-heres-where-they-have-it-the-worst/?utm_term=.45e91dd1c24f “Nationwide the data shows that 33 percent of Americans hold debt that is currently in collection. The median amount of debt in collections is $1,450.”...

A Little History of the legislator who wrote the bill: Chair of the House Appropriations Committee since 2017, Rodney Frelinghuysen’s campaigns have been funded by the aerospace, defense, pharmaceutical and health care industries. On domestic issues, he opposes legalized abortion, Planned Parenthood, sanctuary cities, and federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions. He endorsed Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. He voted to repeal the...