About Angry Bear

Angry Bear 2009:

The Wall Street Journal, 24/7 Wall Street and Time CNN named Angry Bear among the top 25 independent economic blogs on the net.
As quoted at CNN “… Angry Bear is the product of a half dozen Ph.D economists, an historian, and financial professionals. The writers provide individual perspectives on broad sectors of the economy based on their unique training. They look at topics as varied as worldwide trade and industrial production and US government programs and regulations like Social Security.”

In no particular order our current economists are Cactus, Divorced one like Bush, Ken Houghton, Spencer England, Stormy, Robert Waldmann, Tom Bozzo, Linda Beale, and Rebecca Wilder. Bruce Webb has added his expertise in particular on Social Security and current healthcare debate. Rusty(formerly Save the Rustbelt) adds his expertise on the health industry and mid-west. Noni Mausa is a professional writer and poet, who brings us a dose of reality.

Rdan: Rdan and Angry Bear blog

In alphabetical order:

Linda Beale I am a law professor at Wayne State University Law School who teaches various courses in the area of federal income tax, such as introduction to federal income tax, corporate taxation, partnership taxation, international taxation and perhaps in the future a course in statutory interpretation focussed on tax. I think that the tax system should reflect the values of ordinary Americans and our long-held belief in principles of liberty, equality and community.

I fear that we have instead tended to give too much credence to purportedly “objective” ideas about taxation based on the rationales of law and economics and unverified theories about economic growth and too little credence to human needs for community that require allocating the burdens and benefits of the tax system fairly among the people and entities that make up our system. She maintains her own blog ataxingmatter as well.

Tom Bozzo: I’ve worked in consulting since 1996, mostly on issues pertaining to more-or-less regulated firms — especially in the postal, telecom, and railroad sectors. I live in Madison, Wisconsin with my oh-so-non-economist wife and two preschool-age children (who would occasionally make guest appearances at my old blog), and occasionally get time on the computer when it’s not being used for sessions of Elmo’s Keyboard-O-Rama.

Cactus: An economist for a private corporation and author of a book to be published June 2010.

DolB: I am a liberal. A label that “progressive” is used in exchange with. I am not a radical, fascist, loony, left winged, socialist, commie. In fact, I am rather ambidextrous. Please look up all such terms before you start applying them to my writings here. I like to learn. I love to discuss such that the discussion resolves into my having learned. My qualifications as it relates to blogging at AB are generic compared to the economists here.
I have two businesses; a practice in the health care field and a retail business of flowers and plants. I have served as an officer of 2 non-profits and my state society. I have testified before my state legislature. I have personally won in my state supreme court. I have been locally politically active including sitting on a commission and the zoning board.
You can learn more personal stuff about me here here and here.

Ken Houghton: A principle in his own company and former economist for several major financial companies.

Noni Mausa: Noni is a professional writer and poet who frames economic issues in an eloquent and understandable manner.
Spencer: Before I started my own consulting business I was an economist for the CIA for 10 years and worked for a couple of Boston investment management firms as their in house economist, investment strategist for some 12 years. My original field of study was international economics and international finance.
I just celebrated the 20th anniversary of publishing SEER — my equity strategy product. I model the S&P industries and advise portfolio managers on how to structure their portfolios by recommending industry weights.

Rusty (formerly Save the Rustbelt): Tom has 30 years involvement in health care as a CPA, management consultant, medical practice executive, public policy wonk, writer, seminar leader, and litigation analyst. His newly started blog on national health care issues can be found at Health Care Think Tank.

Stormy:

Robert Waldmann: …born the day after Kennedy was elected (November 9 1960).
I have a PhD in economics (Harvard 1989) and teach economics at the
University of Rome “Tor Vergata”. I wasn’t always like this. I have a bachelor’s degree in biology.
Oddly, I don’t blog much at my own site rjwaldmann about economics or Italy. Currently, I am obsessed with Obama, but I’ll try not to bore people with stuff they already read 10 times today.
As an economist (roughly) I am interested in behavioral economics, growth, and the economics of inequality. Actually much of my current research, such as it is, is really in econometric methodology and statistics. I was very unorthodox in the 80s, but the orthodoxy is much less rigid now.

Bruce Webb:I am by training a historian and mythologist who then has spent my working career in information retrieval and land use regulation. My interest in Social Security arose when I noticed in passing that the dates related to ‘crisis’ were moving but that nobody seemed to be noticing that and still less asking the key questions ‘why?’ and ‘can this go on?’ So I set out to try to answer those questions and then share the results which somehow led to a gig here at AB. Politically I am somewhat left of left of center and could best be described as a ‘New Dealer’ and so weigh in on more overtly political questions as the opportunity arises.

Rebecca Wilder: After receiving my Doctorate in Economics, I was an assistant professor for two years. However, I realized that teaching just wasn’t for me and took a job in private sector. Now, I am an Economist in the financial industry.

As an economist in finance, I analyze data, write commentary, and offer economic insight to traders, chiefs of staff, and really anyone who wants my opinion. It is in this job that I developed a fancy for writing, but mostly I love talking about economics to anyone who will listen. She maintains her own blog Newsneconomics as well.

History of Angry Bear:
Written by Cactus

The eponymous Angry Bear blog is the brainchild of… Angry Bear (“AB”), who founded the blog in February of 2003. The title of the blog reflects his emotional reaction (anger) to his view of the state (bearish) of the state of the economy when the blog was founded. Sadly, he had cause to maintain that sentiment for quite a while.

Kash Mansori joined the blog in August 2003, and PGL arrived a year later. AB, Kash, and PGL formed the core of the blog for many years. Each has a Ph.D. in economics, but AB’s focus is on microeconomic issues, Kash’s are in macroeconomic issues, and PGL’s training is in finance.

Neither AB nor Kash has posted here in a while, but we hold out hope for their eventual return. We also hold out hope for the return of CR, who posted for several years at both Angry Bear and his own blog, Calculated Risk. However, we can at least continue to enjoy his insights on real estate at the Calculated Risk blog.

Since 2006, Angry Bear has added more regulars – some have remained, some have stayed for a while and then moved on. Our current regulars include Cactus, Spencer, Rdan, Divorced one Like Bush, Save the Rustbelt, and Stormy, and of course PGL.In 2008 we added two economists Tom Bozzo and Ken Houghton. Bruce Webb and Robert Waldmann, Linda Beale , Rebecca Wilder and Noni Mausa are now regulars. Not all the regulars are economists by training, but then nobody is perfect.