The Angry Bear

In the summer of 1984, I lived on the ranch of Gerald “Digger” Moravek, just outside Sheridan, Wyoming.  Like many of the ranchers who banded together to establish the Powder River Basin Resource Council, where I was working, Digger was drawn to environmentalism partly for self-interested reasons:  in the early 1970s a coal company was blasting near his land and damaging his house.  But fighting coal companies and limiting the damage from strip...

Reuters says the students are protesting the war in Palestine.  The students say that they are protesting the war — the killing of innocents.  Still and yet, the U.S. media doesn’t get it — says that the protesters are pro-Palestian, or anti-Semitic.  Seems it is about the narrative. To be clear. Netanyahu and ultra-orthodox Jews wanted this war.  They wanted Gaza, the occupied territories.  An observer over the years might envision caged...

The old man knew what it was. At first, he hoped to wait until tomorrow. That wasn’t meant to be. He had to go now, and his regular Doctor was too far away; especially at the time of day. The nearest Emergency Room (E.R.) it was. By this time, he could barely walk, but felt that he was alright to drive. The walk from the parking garage to the hospital front entry took all he had. There, the security guy told him that he couldn’t go through to the...

I will not be Posting on May 12. Sorry! I will catch up later. Still hurting on a Sunday. Hoping this will pass by Monday. Big thank you to Eric and Ken for posting this Sunday. I would not have been able to do it.

Weekly Indicators for May 6 – 10 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The majority of short leading and coincident indicators continue to show strength rather than weakness. This week it was commodity prices’ turn to show that the global economy is getting stronger. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the economic data, and reward me with...

Queen Claude and Anne Boleyn by Claude Scales self absorbed boomer In my post about the global art market I noted that my given name, Claude, is gender neutral in French. Today, thanks to Tina Brown’s review of Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage that Shook Europe, by John Guy and Julia Fox, I know there was a Queen Claude of France (image: School of Jean Clouet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). She was...

In preparation for a renewed reign of the insurrectionist, energy sources and their associations are writing up executive orders to reverse much of what Pres. Joe Biden has done over 4 years. If you recall, the same was done after Barack Obama left the presidency. Many or most of Obama’s initiatives were reversed by an incoming president who would have trouble writing a paragraph much less an executive order. A bit different in the latter as it took...

The 2024 Social Security Trustees Report came out on Monday, May 6. You can find dozens of press reports and other commentary online, most of which are written by people who actually know nothing about Social Security except what they read in the papers. Some are written by people who do know what they are talking about but write in a way that is likely to mislead. For today I am just going to look at the May 6 analysis: “Analysis of the 2024...

 – by New Deal democrat I’ve written two posts earlier this week delving into the big divergence between the Establishment Survey portion of the Employment Report, which shows moderate growth, and the Household Survey, which is most consistent with a recession already having started. At any given time, some data will be positive and some will be negative. That’s why I follow a whole series of reports with longer term proven reliability. Most of...

We are not the typical American car buyers. In 40 years, my wife and I have owned exactly five cars, two of which we still drive: one is 21 years old and just ticked over 100K miles, while the other is 10 years old and will soon hit 50K. But who knows how much longer the 21 year-old Pontiac Vibe will last? When it dies, we’ll consider an EV or hybrid. There are certainly a lot of Teslas on the road, and there are other EVs that are cheaper than...