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

Near Complete Abatement of Inflation

Producer prices, “sticky” consumer prices – basically, everything except shelter show nearly complete abatement of inflation  – by New Deal democrat The producer price index released this morning for November is yet further confirmation that inflation ex-shelter is simply not in the pipeline. Both total and core PPI were unchanged for the month. Both commodities […]

Four Days a Week: This Labor Day, Let’s Talk About Laboring Less

If the throughput of product remains the same or increases, why wouldn’t a 4-day labor week be allowed? If more output is required, another shift can be started on the fifth day. Tom Walker has discussed such utilization of production labor to gain greater productivity. There is no loss of money to the company. Labor […]

Real aggregate payrolls rise to new high as CPI ex-shelter continues somnolent

Real aggregate payrolls rise to new high as CPI ex-shelter continues somnolent  – by New Deal democrat With few exceptions, the November CPI report once again demonstrated how important fictitious shelter is to its calculation, as well as how important the inflection point of $5 gas in June 2022 has been. Headline inflation rose only […]

In-Box Topics Which May Be of Interest

Topics pulled from my In-Box which I have no time to write about. Thinking, they still may be of interest to readers who visit Angry Bear. Please be topical. Healthcare Some Reasons to Get Off the Fence About COVID Booster, medscape.com, Debby Waldman. Researchers found that getting vaccinated led to a 69% reduction in long-COVID risk […]

Scenes from the leading sectors of the November jobs report: why I sounded a note of caution

Scenes from the leading sectors of the November jobs report: why I sounded a note of caution  – by New Deal democrat I seem to have been something of a negative outlier with respect to last Friday’s jobs report. Not because I was downbeat – although I said there were “warning signs of weakness,” but […]

Untainted

Throughout history, there have been times when some human minds shone brilliant lighting the way forward for us all. For much of time, their light could be said to be enough. Never omniscient, but enough. At these times, these big minds saw far enough ahead to lead us forward. Along the way, our world has […]

A Century Ago, This Water Agreement Changed the West. And Now?

Reader Dan – On Water – Angry Bear According to a University of Arizona researcher, “society is losing $2.4 billion per year because the Colorado River’s water” no longer flows all the way to the Gulf of California. ~~~~~~~~ And that problem, still exists today as states argue about Colorado River water rights and keep […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators for December 4 – 8 2023

Weekly Indicators for December 4 – 8 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The coincident data keeps getting better and better, while interest rates remain very negative. The question, as it has been for months, is whether those interest rates finally case the short leading […]

Amtrak vision links Detroit Metro Airport, Detroit and Cleveland

This makes sense unless you want to hang around the airport for a while to catch another flight to Cleveland or Toledo. If you are observant, there is another route into Canada. All that is missing is an express to Chicago. Amtrak proposal would link Detroit, DTW, Toledo, Cleveland | Crain’s Detroit Business, crainsdetroit.com, Anna […]

Is Redistribution the Solution?

Toward the end of a very interesting and worthwhile conversation about how right-wing “populism” co-opts righteous anger at established institutions, Vincent Bevins asked Naomi Klein how she would counter that co-optation. Her answer was to advocate a “real left that has a political program that is actually redistributive,” which sounds good until you realize that […]