Will those who are claiming that the economy is recovering and things are better please explain why, as of today, we have sixteen straight weeks of “seasonally adjusted” UI claims above 400,000? I’m now convinced that there will be no troop reductions in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, or any of the other places where we’re conducting […]

Rebecca Wilder has shifted to publishing her insightful articles on Europe back to her Newsneconomics platform, but will continue to publish on US topics and US/Europe connections on Angry Bear. I think that the shift is smart…the audience for Angry Bear is focused more on the US and as the election cycle is already quite […]

by Daniel Becker Being that we’re about to experience austerity because we are convinced we can’t spend money properly such that we actually end up with more after rather than less …  which is very depressing to me and defeatist in presentation, I present my new theme song:  That’s how it goes. I just find […]

by Mike Kimel Home Values: Delusional Buyers, Bank Squeezers and Zillow Via Barry Ritholtz, a link to a post at Time Moneyland post which led to a post at the Zillow blog: Zillow recently compared the asking price of 1 million for-sale homes with those homes’ previous purchase price, then factored in the change in […]

The latest Washington Post ABC poll has some dramatic results ” Even among Republicans, 58 percent see the GOP as too resistant to a deal, up from 42 percent in March. In the new poll, fully 50 percent of conservative Republicans and “strong” tea party supporters say the GOP leadership is too unwilling to make […]

I’m writing a few long posts—you’ve been warned—but that machine doesn’t have Internet access right now.* So I’m just going to point to Kash, who writes about something else: In looking at the data I was struck by how small (relatively) the worldwide market for gold really is. That means that relatively small inflows of […]

I had a post on the federal deficit talks and the speeches made to ‘resolve’ the political emergency, perhaps to turn into a fiscal emergency, and surely to further idealogy. But this picture was so much more accurate. (no attribution found)

It’s now two years after the end of the Great Recession, and the unemployment rate has ticked downward just 9 pps (percentage points) since its 10.1% peak. Pundits call this an expansion since GDP has fully retraced its recession losses; but the unemployment rate tells a very different story. (click to enlarge) The chart illustrates […]

Industrial production was reported to have increased 0.2% in June as compared to – 0.1% declines in April and May. The entire gain was in mining and utilities as manufacturing output was unchanged. The chart shows industrial production this cycle compared to other cycles. The old forecasting rule of thumb was that it took about […]