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

Happy Friday

hat tip CoRev The famous Olympic skier Picabo Street (pronounced Pee-Ka-Boo) is not just an athlete…she is now a nurse currently working at an Intensive Care Unit of a large metropolitan hospital. She is not permitted to answer the hospital telephones any longer. It caused too much confusion when she would answer the phone and […]

While some liberals have a problem with Obama/Biden…

…how are people who, eight years ago, were proudly displaying “Sore/Loserman” bumper stickers going to react if/when McCain announces Loserman as his pick for VP?* UPDATE: Otoh, if the NYT and Reuters are correct, any claim that Obama is “too inexperienced to be President” just went out the window. *This is not necessarily going to […]

The last twenty years and Krugman

by tin man and rdan Paul Krugman said some thing in the NYT. We wondered about these questions too. What was the mechanism for the leveling of healthcare costs in the Clinton ‘90s? (If they did actually level?) What was the mechanism for the same to skyrocket as they have in the past 8 years.(What […]

Peak Oil and prices in two years from now

By One Salient Oversight Summary: Oil prices are dropping as demand destruction bites. But thatdoesn’t invalidate Peak Oil. Supply limits will continue to exist evenwhen oil prices and demand drops. This means that the price of oil willstill be too high even when the economy is at its lowest ebb. Quotes:——————–The economic stress caused by […]

Real GDP Report

Sorry I’m slow posting this, but I was busy elsewhere yesterday. To understand the real GDP report you need to look at the monthly data. Real GDP is a measure of output. But we do not directly measure output. Rather, we measure consumption and adjust that for changes in trade and inventories to indirectly measure […]

New posting rules, comment removal

rdan Updated January 23, 2009 Comments to date have been generally relevant and appropriately documented. ‘Coventry has been removed for now as no longer necessary and moderating has become routine and rarely used. All the Angry Bears thank readers for their respect and tone. It is reciprocated. The blog owner and moderators reserve the right […]

Real Per Capita Income

Yesterdays release of real income data has received much commentary from blogger. Many ways of looking at the data and many excuses for the data have been proposed. Often I read comments about how the use of household and/or family data biased the data. And there are some validity to the comments that different ways […]