Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 6:30 pm
Last week, Dan posted what had been an email message I sent him in response to a link he’d sent me to an article by Thom Hartmann on Truthout about the Supreme Court’s infamous Citizens United opinion.  The key (consecutive) paragraphs of Hartmann’s piece, which I qu...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 4:26 pm

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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 1:28 pm
by Linda Beale Finance moves transportation bill--revenue sources at issue Senate Finance committee approved on a 17-6 vote the transportation financing proposal (13 Dems and 5 GOP voting yes; the GOP were Snowe, Crapo, Roberts and Thune). The GOP --Jon Kyl a favo...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 12:26 pm
Any knowledgeable economist will tell you that GDP (or GDP/capita) is a profoundly imperfect and non-inclusive measure of national well-being. In particular, GDP doesn’t count any work isn’t paid for with money — painting your mom’s house, volunteering for the Rotary Club or your churc...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 12:23 pm
by run 75441 "The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?" A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens "That's Baloney" stated Rep. Micky Hammon, R-Decatur, Alabama; the immigration bill cosponsor, told the Huntsville Times. "It's clear the study over estimates the negati...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 10, 2012, 12:12 pm
by Rebecca Wilder Unfounded Obsession With the Greek Minimum Wage The Greek minimum wage is apparently a point of contention between the Troika (ECB/EU/IMF) and the Greek government. The NY Times cites competitiveness gains as a rationale for the minimum wage cut: The goal of any p...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 9, 2012, 11:42 am
Yesterday there was a post about the participation rate that displayed a widespread misunderstanding of what the data actually shows. The labor force and the participation rate have been falling since the great recession. The following table shows that for the last three years the participation rate...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 9, 2012, 11:01 am
Naked Capitalism posts today on the AG agreement in Settlement Breakdown by State Plus Other Official Propaganda: This agreement is very significant in how it addresses the fraud that these banks committed against many homeowners across our state,” said ___.“ This agreement not...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 9, 2012, 10:44 am
Yves comments on Wired’s Embarrassing Whitewash of Foxconn : But Johnson admits he’s a tech toy writer who apparently has no knowledge of manufacturing …. Yet he’s remarkably uninhibited in using his fantasies and abject ignorance as a basis for making sweeping generalizations a...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 9, 2012, 7:48 am
This article caught my attention mainly because I hadn't heard much about the court battles on terminating funding for the A-12 because I thought it was done. But the inability of DOD to submit documentation that might justify that the A-12 was not viable due to classified and secret information an...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 9, 2012, 7:00 am
Updated: Renewable Germany bailing out Nuclear France   I just read the following in an article by a Mr. Bill McKibben and thought it to be an interesting perspective on why climate change/global warming is being so vigorously denied. ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 8, 2012, 3:04 pm
Or: It’s The Velocity, Stupid. I got quite a bit of blowback on my recent post suggesting that economists don’t understand accounting. In response I give you Exhibit A: the almost-ubiquitous notion that more saving increases the supply of “loanable funds” — hence that more saving ca...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 8, 2012, 12:47 pm
Let's ignore that three of his four wins (including two last night) have come in non-binding caucuses and take a quick look at The Size of the Santorum Surge. Over at Skippy, Our Leader posted a link to a discussion of whether "Romney's strengths" could beat Obama. I wisecracked, without looking at ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 8, 2012, 10:53 am
by Dale Coberly LES MISERABLES: SOCIAL SECURITY Javert And Evil From a message from the National Consumer Law Center (reference msaunders@nclc.org): "It’s perfectly fine for a person who failed to pay their child support to end up penniless and living...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 8, 2012, 6:39 am
Mish at Global Economic Analysis says it loud and clear as well as Mike Kimel and Ken Houghton here at Angry Bear: I will stick with what I have said on many occasions "People are dropping out of the labor force at an astounding, almost unbelievable rate, holding the unemployment rate artific...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 8, 2012, 6:36 am
Rick Hasen at Election Law Blog instructs us on super pacs and 501c4s: These days, I probably spend more time speaking to reporters (from as far away as Brazil and Italy) about Super PACs than about any other election law subject. There is a lot of misinformation floating out there about what...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 11:30 pm
by Rebecca Wilder Temporary Employment: A New Ugly Rearing its Head in Europe? Last week Clive Crook opined on some fallacies of labor reform, specifically related to the unions and through the Spanish experience. Labor reform is a highly contentious subject, given its close ties to welfare an...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 6:18 pm
David Frum was excommunicated from the Righties Club a few years back because he insisted on occasionally saying sane and accurate things. He continues that aberrational behavior today in his review of AEI uber-zealot Charles Murray’s new book, Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 3:34 pm
With apologies to Stan Collender’s Beautiful and Talented Wife (not to mention mine): James had gathered a mix of friends, acquaintances, and random strangers at his Rent Party, but no one was talking to anyone else. So he decided to get people to talk to each other, using the easiest non-visible ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 2:26 pm
by  Rebecca Wilder Which Economy Is Pursuing Procyclical Fiscal Policy? Today the BLS reported that the US unemployment rate dropped to 8.3% in January 2012. This is the lowest measured rate since February 2009 – a local trough. Also this week, Eurostat reported that the Euro area (EA) une...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 7:57 am
Taxprofblog points to research suggesting a tipping point about the notion that small businesses drive the economy: Martin A. Sullivan (Tax Analysts), New Research Weakens Case for Small Business Tax Relief The National Federation of Independent Business states on its website: "Sma...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 7:46 am
by Linda Beale Why we don't need corporate tax "overhaul" GOP poormouthing on behalf of rich corporate allies(Part I in a series) These days, one hears a great deal from politicians on the right about how a corporate tax "overhaul" is needed because our taxes are "too complex"...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 6, 2012, 7:30 am
‘Bank Transfer Day’, What Really Just Happened? James Van Dyke points to some numbers on the move to transfer funds out of big banks: Bank Transfer Day and the Occupy Movement have received tremendous attention, and for the first time we have market research data to measure the impact on t...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 5, 2012, 10:05 am
 Making it Harder for Military Families to Sue for Medical Malpractice In defending the U.S. military’s medical system in court, the U.S. Department of Justice is arguing that service personnel and their families are not allowed to sue for medical malpractice regardless of the circumstance. ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 4, 2012, 3:18 pm
Don’t tell me that the Dems favor fiscal stimulus because they like big government. The payroll tax cut will make it a bit more difficult to expand the size of government in future years. (As Clinton found in 1993, when he was told the “bond markets” (i.e. the Reagan tax cuts) wouldn’t allo...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 3, 2012, 4:22 pm
by Beverly Mann Thomas Hartmann writes via Truthout: Most Americans don't realize that the idea that ‘corporations are people’ and ‘money is speech’ are concepts that were never, ever considered or promoted or even passed by any legislature in the history of America. Neither were they ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 3, 2012, 4:10 pm

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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 3, 2012, 2:00 pm
David Beckworth: global economic growth over the past few decades has outpaced the capacity of the world economy to produce truly safe assets Really? The U.S. could have just deficit-spent more, crediting people’s/businesses’ checking accounts and thereby increasing the global stock...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 3, 2012, 10:12 am
This is another look at the idea I put forth here, that - contra the standard economic idea that consumption depends on wealth - I believe that consumption depends on income.  It's worth stressing that wealth and income are not independent variables.  Wealth is the accumula...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 3, 2012, 9:17 am
This report is now adjusted to show the impact of the population control adjustment. The employment report was the strongest this cycle with payroll employment rising 243,000. The household survey shows a gain of 843,000 but almost 250,000 of that is due to the new population adjustments so t...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 2, 2012, 3:31 pm
Robert Waldmann comments on the Freddie Mac story recently in the news (lifted from Stochastic Thoughts): Freddster (noun): Fraudster who profits from conflict of interest at Freddie Mac (the knife). Jesse Eisinger, pf ProPublica and Chris Arnold, of the public sector NPR News have the mos...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 2, 2012, 1:38 pm
Matt Yglesias has a great post over at Moneybox (paragraph breaks added): The need for regime change. … The Depression discredited the gold standard and a whole set of related notions. The Great Inflation discredited ideas about the Phillips Curve … We had, until recen...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 2, 2012, 7:50 am
by Rebecca Wilder Is the ECB/EU Achieving Stated Objective of Balanced Growth? The primary objective of the European Central Bank is to maintain price stability; however, as a compliment to its primary objective, the Eurosystem “shall also ‘support the general economic policies...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 1, 2012, 4:45 pm
I just searched Harvard, U Chicago, and a few other top econ departments’ course offerings and major requirements. The string “account” barely appears. Chicago says quite explicitly: Courses such as accounting, investments, and entrepreneurship will not be considered for economics...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Feb 1, 2012, 2:15 pm
There’s been a running discussion of this on various blogs (sorry if I missed linking some!), inflated simultaneously by Krugman and by magisterial and mysterious commenter JKH’s “paradigm riff,” here. That discussion has brought me to the following conclusions. Assuming you hav...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 31, 2012, 9:14 pm
Why have I never posted about Yasha Levine over at The Exiled? They’re the ones that first broke this story about Koch luring Hayek to America with Social Security, and I make a point to put down my coffee when reading Yasha, to avoid expensive and embarrassing spit-takes. Just a week ago he...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 31, 2012, 9:06 pm
by Linda Beale Kooky Tax Protestors! Anybody who has read much of my blog probably has realized that I don't think much of "tax protestor" movements like the one Wesley Snipe got involved with. There are websites and books and information available in all kinds of places about thes...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 31, 2012, 9:06 pm
by Jon Hammond at Econographia Guest post:  The Obama Record after 3 years - Jobs and GDP The performance of the economy over President Obama’s tenure to date has been much discussed in light of the severe contraction that began in December 2007 .. and the policies implemented to correct co...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 31, 2012, 1:36 pm
by Dale Coberly SOCIAL SECURITY More How They Lie To Us David Brooks says in a column headlined  Where Are the Liberals? Americans don't hate government, but "believe the government has been captured by rent-seekers." This is the disease that c...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 31, 2012, 9:48 am
Part I showed the money going to corporate profits, not to the salaries of working people.  Part II showed that the finance sector has captured an increasing slice of the profit pie.  Here is a different look at where the money hasn't gone. The first graph shows Real GDP/ca...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 30, 2012, 5:23 pm
Freddster (noun): Fraudster who profits from conflict of interest at Freddie Mac (the knife). Jesse Eisinger, pf ProPublica and Chris Arnold, of the public sector NPR News have the most interesting article about ruthless greedy uh socialism I guess at public sector Freddie Mac. The idea is tha...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 30, 2012, 10:36 am
Nick Rowe replies to Richard Williamson re: full-reserve banking (emphasis mine): The key reading here (even though it appears to be about a different subject) is Milton Friedman’s “The optimum quantity of money”. Foregone nominal interest payments is a tax on holding currency…. 100% r...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 30, 2012, 9:30 am
Richard Williamson asks a sensible and straightforward question: If, as Modern Monetary Theorists propose, banks’ reserve levels put no significant constraints on their lending, why don’t we have 100%-reserve banking — and presumably no runs on banks as a result? First an explanation —...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 29, 2012, 10:34 am
• Since Social Security started it has always brought in more money than was spent. It contributes a surplus to the total federal budget. That’s true today and will continue for quite some time. • The extra revenue needed to make SS solid far beyond the foreseeable future (75 years) is t...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 29, 2012, 8:28 am
by Rebecca Wilder The ECB is Plugging Holes Today the ECB released its monthly data on monetary developments in the Euro area (EA), as measured by M3 and its components. The market usually focuses on the marketable assets portion of M3, M3-M2, as a representation of funding access ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 29, 2012, 12:53 am
In case you are not aware, Bill Moyers is back and he doing his best work to date concentrating on our the changing of the rules regarding the economy. This episode where he interviews John Reed, former Citi Bank CEO and current MIT chair is most telling as it relates to the iss...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 28, 2012, 8:30 am

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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 28, 2012, 5:00 am
Past Angry Bear posts started in 2007, but here are four later posts 2008 and 2009: Brain injury awareness Pattern of misconduct PTSD and our military response What are we going to do now is your choice GAO report 12-154 addresses the notion that...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 27, 2012, 10:20 pm
A while back I pointed to (and demonstrated with not very pretty pictures) Randall Wray’s rather stunning observation: every depression in American history was preceded by a large decline in nominal federal debt. And I puzzled about why this wasn’t true of our latest little…event: ...
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Daniel C. posted an article on Angry Bear - Jan 27, 2012, 3:47 pm
 In this post, earlier today, I forgot to link to this article over at Naked Capitalism. The salient point is, that specifically for investors, spending is related exclusively to income, never to wealth. It goes on to posit that QE and monetary policy are killing demand.  As Ste...
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