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

Trump hostage-taking

Trump is threatening to conduct mass firings of federal workers unless Democrats help Republicans overcome a filibuster to pass an unconditional stopgap measure keeping the government open. “The White House Office of Management and Budget, which is led by Russ Vought, put out a memo last night telling federal agencies to start prepping reduction-in-force (RIF) […]

Free Speech in Broadcasting

Roosevelt Institute has displayed an editorial on its site discussing the censoring of Jimmy Kimmel, what has been leading to this, and why it is dangerous. A bit of background on what has taken place. As NPR writes, since his appointment by Pres. Tr_mp as “chair of the Federal Communications Commission; Brendan Carr has waged […]

Government Shutdown – What About Medicare and Social Security?

The AMAC Foundation is kind enough to allow Angry Bear to use its information from the Social Security Report: “Government Shutdown? Medicare and Social Security Benefits to Continue Uninterrupted.” Here is the latest of what will happen if the Gov shuts down. Washington, D.C. Democrats and Republicans seem to be headed for an impasse when […]

Initial jobless claims

 – by New Deal democrat I’m on the road today, and won’t have time to update anything until tonight. So here is what to look for in initial and continuing jobless claims. Remember that the most important figure for forecasting purposes is the YoY% change. One year ago, initial claims came in at 221,000, the […]

Kareem Takes on the News

Kareem talks Robert Kennedy Jr. and his ramblings as the Secretary of Health. It is pretty obvious in front of Congress he is not up to the job. Neither is he capable to direct the citizens of the United States. Over the last few years, it was pretty easy to get a Covid vaccination. Just […]

Open Thread with a Topic

Or you can talk about something else. I did this in early August also. As I said before, this used to be a weekly process and sometimes was very successful. As a subscriber. I am posting part of a Paul Krugman commentary from the past. It may interest you. You can always use your own […]

How many immigrants live in the U.S.?

Answering the question as a part of: “Immigrants and the economy,” Economic Policy Institute. Just how many migrants and immigrants are living in the United States? There were 47.8 million migrants and immigrants who resided in the United States as of 2023 (see Figure A), which includes all foreign-born persons of any immigration status and those […]

Keeping Trump honest

A recurring theme in shut-down commentary is that Democrats cannot trust Trump and congressional republicans to keep any deal they make to fund the government. This seems like a valid concern.  Some commentators cite this as one of the main reasons for Democrats to refuse to fund the government.  But unless the Democrats have a […]

Frum: “Can he consolidate power before he loses his aura of inevitability?”

Good question by Frum. Some speculation in this piece by Paul Krugman. Trump is or is becoming unpopular. It comes as no surprise to me Tr_mp is fumbling around and going back and forth in his decision making. People are still hurting except for the upper 10%. The key to this is whether Tr_mp can […]

“the last shoes to drop, have dropped” Recession

New home sales: despite the noisy sharp increase in August, the last pre-recession metrics are firmly negative  – by New Deal democrat Have I mentioned before that new home sales, while perhaps the most leading of all the housing data, suffer from being very noisy and heavily revised? Yes, I think I have, just about […]