Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

About the April JOLTS report: hiring and quitting remain very, very good

 – by New Deal democrat I’ll write about today’s ISM non-manufacturing report later, but first I wanted to follow up with several more graphs based on yesterday’s JOLTS labor report for April. Basically, I didn’t want to leave the impression that the labor market was in any way sub-par based on those numbers. With that […]

Volcanos vs anthropogenic global warming

Another stupid climate change denialist troll trick is to point out that volcanos also emit carbon dioxide and therefore volcanos, not human activity, are the cause of the current climate change crisis. While vulcanism has shaped the climate during earth’s history, it is not a significant contributor today. Human activity-associated CO2 generation dwarfs volcanos. Again, […]

Atmospheric carbon dioxide and global warming

A favorite canard of climate change denialist trolls is to trivialize the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; how could something that is only 0.04% of the atmosphere drive global warming? Well, Google is your friend: “About 99 percent of the atmosphere is made of oxygen and nitrogen, which cannot absorb the infrared radiation […]

The Increasing Firearms-Related Deaths among U.S. Black Rural Youths

There is a far greater detailed article at the New England Journal of Medicine. Angry Bear did not have the space to rightfully do the article justice. Instead, we concentrated on the letter to the editor written April 19, 2024. The article was published on May 30, 2024. Just the brief letter to the editor […]

Demographic Outlook 2024 to 2054 Part II: Population Used by CBO to Project the Labor Force

I have been shrinking this total report through editing so as to make it easier to read in a shorter amount of time. It is also split into three parts to minimize the size of the read also. To me, it is pretty interesting as there have been discussion about how the CBO and other […]

April JOLTS report: firming in hires, quits, and a (good) decline in layoffs, while “fictitious” job openings continue their slide

 – by New Deal democrat The JOLTS report for April showed most metrics rebounding slightly from March lows, with the exception of the “soft data” job openings. The overall picture is that hiring is weak relative to the past five years, but so are layoffs, and voluntary quits are equally relatively strong, balancing them out. […]

Is 3D printing the answer to the housing crisis?

In a rebuke to the standard economic model that demand drives supply, housing prices in the US these days continue to rise. How much of this is due to local regulation vs cost of new home construction is above my pay grade. But the claim is that 3D printed homes can mitigate shortages in affordable […]

AZ Republicans to add ballot measure allowing warrantless arrests over immigration suspicions

by Camaron Stevenson Copper Courier Arizona Republican legislators trying to look good with passing laws having unconstitutional mandates (2010), do nothing, and/or have minimal impact. ~~~~~~~~ Republicans move to add ballot measure allowing warrantless arrests over immigration suspicions Republicans in the Arizona Legislature have approved a ballot measure supporters claim will address the fentanyl crisis […]

Demographic Outlook 2024 to 2054 Part 1: Factors Contributing to Population Growth

The Demographic Outlook: 2024 to 2054, Congressional Budget Office, January 2024 A difference approach to determining the population, the resulting projections, and outcomes as determined by the Congressional Budget Office. The Congressional Budget Office is describing its population projections, which underlie the agency’s baseline budget projections and economic forecast that have been published in already. […]

The good old days

When I started attending departmental faculty meetings in 1987, there was an emeritus faculty, Harold Katzman, who went to most of the meetings. He rarely said anything, but he did make the effort to show up, perhaps out of personal loyalty. Dr. Katzman was the first graduate student of our department’s founding chair, Dr. Edward […]