– by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog The bifurcation of the new vs. existing home markets continued in March, per the report on existing home sales and prices yesterday. Remember that, unlike existing homeowners, house builders can vary square footage, amenities, lot sizes, and offer price and/or mortgage incentives to counteract the effect of […]

The post The bifurcation of the new vs. existing home markets continues appeared first on Angry Bear.

by Katherine Bindley Wall Street Journal AB: I have a partial subscription to WSJ which I keep on forgetting. This article popped up. I agree with the author, the LED Headlights are too bright. Not only are these my thoughts. Mechanical Engineer Victor Morgan, in South Carolina has a light meter on his dashboard. He […]

The post America’s Drivers Agree: LED Headlights Are Just Too Bright appeared first on Angry Bear.

Debra A. Pinals The Pew Charitable Trusts It has been a while since I talked about prisons. I have been in each level, up to a level 4 as a visitor. Spend hours talking to a prisoner. Eight hours out and 16 locked down at that level. They remain in their seats and you go […]

The post More than a million people in America’s prisons and jails have behavioral health conditions appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog For the last 8 months, initial and continuing claims have been remarkably consistent. Initial claims have varied between 194,000 and 228,000, and continuing claims have with the exception of three weeks right at the new year varied between 1.787 million and 1.829 million. That rangebound trend continued […]

The post Initial jobless claim Zzzzzzzzzz . . . . appeared first on Angry Bear.

Atlanta USPS Regional Processing and Distribution Centers crashes on launch by Steve Hutkins Save the Post Office This is a long post. It is the only way Steve can get it across the issues created by Louis Dejoy’s incompetence. Look out 2024 Presidential Elections. We will have a battle on our hands. Think of SCOTUS. […]

The post Where the 2024 Presidential Election Voting Integrity Will Be Fought appeared first on Angry Bear.

SWI swissinfo.ch Switzerland exceeded its voluntary gas savings target this winter. Compared to average consumption between 2017 and 2022, the target was to reduce gas consumption by 15%. However, according to provisional government figures, it was 23% less. ______________________________________________ Keystone-SDA The target was 3,997 gigawatt hours (GWh) of gas savings, regardless of the weather, over […]

The post Switzerland significantly exceeded winter gas savings target   appeared first on Angry Bear.

The Professor Who Wrote the Seminal Book on Wall Street Megabanks Calls Today’s Financial System “Dangerously Unstable”

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 18, 2024 ~ George Washington University Law Professor, Arthur Wilmarth, has done it again. After authoring the seminal book on the insidious evolution and enormous dangers still posed by the Wall Street megabanks (Taming the Megabanks: Why We Need a New Glass-Steagall Act) Wilmarth is now out with a new, gripping paper. In the paper’s abstract, Wilmarth explains how the risks posed by the Wall Street megabanks in 2008 have become exponentially more dangerous today. He writes: “The dangers created by universal banks (including their ‘internal’ shadow banking affiliates) and ‘external’ shadow banks have intensified since 2009. A toxic symbiosis has developed between the syndication and underwriting of risky loans and debt securities by universal banks and the origination of speculative private credit by ‘external’ shadow banks. That noxious partnership has helped to generate unprecedented levels of risky consumer and corporate debts. “Universal banks and … Continue reading →

-

‘Tears me up’ Wesley Stenzel Kareem Abdul-Jabbar It was either talk about the dumb-ass state of Arizona where I now live. Or Kareem talking about why Dwayne he is not endorsing Joe Biden again. SUMMARY: Dwayne Johnson endorsed Joe Biden during his 2020 election campaign — but now he says he regrets that decision, and won’t be making political […]

The post Dwayne Johnson regrets endorsing Joe Biden in 2020, says cancel culture ‘really bugs’ him:  appeared first on Angry Bear.

Gold Has Set Historic Highs this Year as the Federal Reserve Has Reported Historic Losses

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 17, 2024 ~ According to Federal Reserve data, for the first time in its history, the Fed has been losing money on a consistent basis since September 28, 2022. As of the last reporting date of April 10, those losses came to a cumulative $162.9 billion. As the chart above from the Fed indicates, the monthly losses thus far in 2024 have ranged from a high of $13.4 billion in January to $5.5 billion in March. We are not talking about unrealized losses on the debt securities the Fed holds on its balance sheet, which it acquired under its various Quantitative Easing programs. (The Fed does not mark to market the gains or losses on those securities on the basis that it plans to hold them to maturity.) We’re talking about real cash operating losses the Fed is experiencing from earning approximately 2 percent interest on … Continue reading →

-

Ancient lone elm the Last Ent is ‘guardian’ to new trees, msn.com/BBC This kind of kool and interesting. An ancient lone wych elm whose remote Highland location has protected it from Dutch elm disease has been joined by dozens of seedlings for the first time in hundreds of years. The elm – dubbed the Last […]

The post Ancient lone elm the Last Ent is ‘guardian’ to new trees appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Industrial production, one of the premier series the NBER has historically used to declare recessions vs. expansions, has faded in importance since China was admitted to regular trading status in 1999. As you can see in the first graph below, both total and manufacturing production peaked in […]

The post Industrial production for March is positive, but the overall trend remains flat appeared first on Angry Bear.

by Clare Pastore The Conversation A small city in Oregon with one homeless shelter is enforcing a local anti-camping law. Enforcing it against people sleeping in public using a blanket or any other rudimentary protection against the weather. Enforcing it even if there was nowhere else to go. By taking up City of Grants Pass v. Johnson, […]

The post Can local governments make it a crime to sleep outside if no inside space is available? appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog There was a big decline in housing starts last month, and a smaller but significant decline in permits. Whether that signifies a change in trend or just noise is the issue. I lean towards the latter. To wit, in reaction to both January and Februarys’ housing construction report […]

The post Simultaneous declines in housing permits, starts, and units under construction in March suggests seasonality glitch, not a change in trend appeared first on Angry Bear.

Stanford Finance Professor Anat Admati Is Making Jamie Dimon Very Nervous – Again Calling His Bank “Dangerous”

By Pam Martens and Russ Martens: April 16, 2024 ~ Stanford Finance Professor Anat Admati has been valiantly attempting to save the American financial system from the corrupting influence and disinformation campaigns of men like JPMorgan Chase’s Jamie Dimon for more than a decade. Her voice is gaining traction and that’s making Dimon very nervous. Dimon has admitted in his recent letter to shareholders that his federal banking regulators want the bank to raise 25 percent more capital. Making banks hold more equity capital (as opposed to debt) is an issue that Admati has made a central focus of her arguments for years. Dimon’s bank would have a lot more equity capital if Dimon had retained the bank’s earnings each year instead of tapping those earnings to boost the bank’s stock price by using $117 billion of the bank’s earnings for share buybacks over the past decade. (Retained earnings add to a … Continue reading →

-

Most students who attend medical school in the US do so with student loans. Yes, some have military scholarships and some have wealthy parents, but most don’t. I’m guessing that most students reckon they’ll easily pay off the loans with the income that an MD or DO degree commands, and so far, they’ll be right. […]

The post On student loans appeared first on Angry Bear.

Suzanne Blake Newsweek Nothing unique here. Just another Texas screwup while trying to eliminate people from state and federal programs. The problem being they mistakenly injure the innocents. No problem though, it happens in other states or so Texans claim. Hundreds of Texas seniors lost their Medicare benefits after Texas Health and Human Services made an error in the […]

The post Texas Seniors Suddenly Lose Medicare Benefits appeared first on Angry Bear.

by Steve Roth Wealth Economics Matthew Klein and Joey Politano have been singularly responsible in their discussions of “excess saving” in the covid era — not least by always putting that term in “so-called” quotes. It’s saving in excess of what would have happened if pre-covid linear trends had continued (with the trend based on some chosen range of preceding quarters or years). […]

The post Personal Income and Personal Saving Make More than 40% of Households’ Property Income…Invisible. Think Total Return. appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog As per usual, real retail sales is one of my favorite indicators, because it gives so much information about the consumer, and since consumption leads employment, it helps forecast the trend in the latter as well. And the news this morning was good, as nominally retail sales […]

The post Real retail sales rebound, forecast a continued “soft landing” for jobs growth appeared first on Angry Bear.

I’m an investor, not a gambler, so I don’t own cryptocurrency, NFTs or shares in “Truth” Social. So the news that investors in DJT are being taken to the cleaners doesn’t faze me. “Shares of Trump Media plunged more than 15% on Monday after the company filed to issue millions of additional shares of stock. […]

The post Trump’s “Truth” Social meme stock plummets appeared first on Angry Bear.

OK, Tesla isn’t Bitcoin and it isn’t Trump’s Pravda Social, but: “Tesla announced to Gigafactory Texas employees that it will shorten Cybertruck production shift amid rumors that it is preparing a round of layoffs. “We received several reports today from Tesla employees hearing rumors of an important round of layoffs happening this week at the […]

The post Tesla and the law of gravity appeared first on Angry Bear.