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Correcting 11 Washington Post’s Charts That Are Supposed to Tell How the Economy Changed Since Covid

15 hours ago

By Dean Baker

CEPR

Not much of a surprise here the 11 Washington Post’s Charts need some explaining to correct the misinterpretation of them by WaPo. The issue here is the amount of bad or false information floating around in the news media today. People tend to believe what they initially read and go no further. When people like Prof. Dean come along and correct the inaccuracies it can be misinterpreted as political. People want to believe what they like to believe.

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The Washington Post made some serious errors or omissions in its 11 charts that are supposed to tell us how Covid changed the economy.

Wages

Starting with its second chart, the article gives us an index of average weekly wages since 2019. The index shows a big

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Alternate Ports for Shipments

2 days ago

Suddenly everyone is an expert on Shipping and Supply Chain. Considering we had issues in Long Beach and Los Angeles, management did not resolve the issue, I understand they are unionized. You pay them and solve the issues. Instead, Biden has to step-in and schedules overtime. You get the product to the customer. Los Angeles is the busiest port and then New York/New Jersey.

One ship crashes into a Baltimore bridge and we have expectations of more and major national shortages. Wrong conclusion. There are other ports and it may cost more in the short term. I do not expect it to be $10 to $12 thousand a container, which is abuse.

Things happen and you have to have contingency solutions in place. There has to be contingency plans (redundant, yes

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The economy is actually doing great — unless you want to make a change in your life.

3 days ago

Liking your present situation right now?

Your job, your house, your car, you can keep it and you may have to do so. Buying a new car, house, or getting a different job may be more costly and not pay off. Even if you are not so satisfied, chances maybe you having to manage your pennies and stay put. Making a major economic change today involving costly upgrades, may not be advantageous, right now. Getting far out on a limb in a new job or with greater costs may be too risky.

It is what author Emily Stewart at Business Insider identifies as a “trapped in placed economy.”

University of Michigan’s director of consumer surveys Joanne Hue a has another name for it.

“If you are trying to move, buy a car, whatnot, then you have all these bad

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More for Them, Less for Us, Talking Taxes and Deficits

4 days ago

Ran across am Americans for Tax Fairness article last night. Corporation tax dodging and executive pay has both is far out of control. A significant number of major U.S. corporations are paying their top executives more than they’re paying federal income taxes. 

Matters have worsened with trump taking office in 2016 and the TCJA Making the Tax System, and the Tax Season More Burdensome. There is roughly a $2.1 trillion deficit resulting from this tax break. It was passed using Reconciliation and can be repealed, etc. It has not increased revenues and has worsened the deficit.

Key Findings

Thirty-five profitable corporations paid top executives more than they paid in federal income taxes between 2018 and 2022.

The 35 companies not only paid

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Open Thread March 24 2024 Shorter Work Week – Is It All It Promises to Be?

5 days ago

A New Norm: Senators Bernie Sanders and Laphonza Butler presented an intriguing idea: making a shorter work week a national norm. The bill they introduced proposes changing the standard workweek with no loss in pay for certain groups of employees, including many hourly workers, from 40 to 32 hours, at which point overtime pay would kick in. Whether that change sounds quixotic depends on whom you ask. But as Sanders said in a statement:

“Moving to a 32-hour work week with no loss of pay is not a radical idea.”

Tags: work week

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The Lie Banks Use To Protect Late-Fee Profits

6 days ago

Hal Singer at Lever News wrote a commentary explaining how banks (mostly) are upset with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau capping credit card late fees at $8. One would think this covers every bank. It does not and only covers banks with more than 1 million card holders. Any bank or organization with less customers can avoid the new rule. And of course there are other exceptions.

The new rule takes effect sixty days after being posted in the Federal Registry.

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Corporations and or banks believe they’re entitled to sky-high profits, and it’s destroying the economy.

In February, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau proposed capping credit card late fees costing   consumers an estimated $14 billion annually. The president

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Republican Budget Cuts Earned Benefits; Keeps Trump Tax Cuts

7 days ago

Angry Bears’ Social Security expert Dale Coberly emailed this to me about the same time it showed up in my inbox. Republicans again are trying to sell the public on the need to cut Social Security and Medicare Budgets for those over 65. Cutting them while keeping the Trump tax breaks which will result in a $2 trillion deficit by the time Reconciliation measures end in 2025.

The cuts makes no sense as both programs are far more efficient and effect than the commercial versions of them. The only issue for both is strengthening them going into the future. Read on . . .

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Members of the Republican Study Committee in Michigan and Arizona. States in which I have lived and am now living.

There are two states which I am interested in

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This is kind of interesting . . .

7 days ago

Like many others, we use Costco to buy bulk things or special items such as this new screen I have plugged my laptop into. This morning, I am looking at the myriad of emails (many of the junk) and clicked on the latest Costco addy to see what they are hawking.

Voila . . . a solar powered generator.

This one is made by Anker (of phone battery charging fame), sold at Costco, and at a discounted price of ~$3700. There are some issues with this source of power. Some detail:

Ultra-high AC output power of 6,000W/9,000W and 120V/240V dual-voltage AC output and 7.68kWh capacity, this combo can power almost your all home appliances, a perfect companion for home backup and RV life.

One Battery, one Power Station, and one foldable Solar Panel.

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Federal Reserve holds interest rates steady (as it goes?)

7 days ago

Interest Rate increases to fight perceived inflation or not fight perceived inflation? Big believer in the cause of much of the inflation being deliberate supply chain planning to increase prices. Have not seen a deliberate price increase yet which will fix a supply chain. Poor or deliberate planning creating issues, a lack of knowledge on supply chains, and invalid sourcing. Pick one.

Similar occurred in 2008-10 and it raised its ugly profit-taking-head again in 2021. We still see ruminant of it in 2024. Are the FED’s actions the right ones to battle commercial Supply Chain issues? From the news sources . . .

The Federal Reserve announced Wednesday it will leave interest rates unchanged, delaying the possibility of rate cuts as well as any

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Preventing prevention

8 days ago

Chances are everyone pays for Preventative Care in the overall cost of a policy. There is no obvious cost sharing. This is ridiculous argument on the part of the anti this and that healthcare insurance companies and those who believe the government goes too far in healthcare and then denies the care. Another Bad Moon Arising with SCOTUS “traditionalism” interpretation of the Constitution. What would they do in 1776?

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The rightwing justices on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals signal they will support repeal of ACA’s mandate to cover prevention at no cost, all but guaranteeing a Supreme Court showdown.

Merrill Goozner @ Gooznews

Earlier this month, a three-judge panel of the New Orleans-based U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth

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Social Security: What Would Happen If the Trust Funds Ran Out?

9 days ago

A repost of a Bruce Webb take on Social Security and what happens if the Trust Funds go to zero. This is from 2015 and as you know, not much has been done. In one respect, maybe nothing should be done as long as it does not become a major crisis. By that I mean, we should be sure our actions are not over-zealous in solution. Do enough to stabilize it for the future as Dale Coberly and Bruce Webb proposed with the Northwest Plan. The timely is now and yet all we hear are crickets.

Angry Bear, Bruce Webb

July 21, 2015 1:01 pm

Very interesting paper that I missed in real time.

Almost everyone who addresses this question assumes that the answer is pretty simple: if either of the Social Security Trust Funds goes to zero than benefits will

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Open Thread March 17 2024, January and February were rough months for inflation

11 days ago

Employ America’s current corecast is for a 2.86% YoY core PCE print for February. The six-month growth rate of core PCE, which was under 2% in December, should now be over 3% in February. Core services ex-housing inflation will be up on a year-on-year basis versus the previous meeting. Many FOMC members, especially among the moderates in the committee (Daly, Mester, Powell, Waller) have expressed a willingness to look through a hot January potentially plagued by seasonality issues, but two months are probably too much to stomach. “March 2024 FOMC Preview,” employamerica.org. Preston Mui

Tags: inflation

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Inflation and Auto Insurance

12 days ago

Center for Economic Development and Policy Research, CEPR

Dean Baker

When we hear about inflation most of us probably think of items like food, gas, and rent, but when it comes to the Consumer Price Index (CPI), the most frequently cited measure of inflation, auto insurance has played a very large role in recent years. The index for motor vehicle insurance rose 0.9 percent in July. It was responsible for 0.024 percentage points of the 0.4 percent inflation reported for February.

Over the last year the insurance index has risen 20.6 percent and is responsible for just over 0.5 percentage points of the 3.2 percent inflation rate in the overall CPI. It accounts for more than 0.6 percentage points of the 3.8 percent inflation shown in the core

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Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s family finds fault with an award given in her name to Elon Musk and Rupert Murdoch

13 days ago

There has to be more deserving unrecognized people worthy of recognition running around today? Why would the Opperman Foundation believe Musk and Murdoch are deserving of such an award given in Justice Ruth Ginsburg’s name?

CNN, Tierney Sneed

The family of the late liberal Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg wants her name pulled off an award after the foundation in charge of doling it out named SpaceX CEO Elon Musk and conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch among this year’s recipients. Ginsburg’s family objected to the Opperman’s Foundation selection.

“In a statement obtained by CNN, Ginsburg’s family said that, with the selection of this year’s honorees, the Opperman Foundation had ‘strayed far from the original mission of the award and from what

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One Place, AB is Happy Not to be Living in or Near

15 days ago

The actions of the state leaders is a blight on the rest of the state.

Florida is swamped by disease outbreaks as quackery replaces science, The Guardian.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar’s Guardian Summary: Shortly before Joseph Ladapo became Florida’s surgeon general in 2022, the New Yorker ran a short column welcoming the vaccine-skeptic doctor to his new role, and highlighting his advocacy for the use of leeches in public health.

It was satire of course, a teasing of the Harvard-educated physician for his unorthodox medical views, which include a steadfast belief that life-saving Covid shots are the work of the devil, and that opening a window is the preferred treatment for the inhalation of toxic fumes from gas stoves.

But now, with an entirely

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Probing the Impact of Private Equity in Healthcare

16 days ago

Not rewriting anything on this commentary or adding to it. Shahon Firth covers a lot of territory in his brief commentary.

Probe Into Private Equity in Healthcare Launched,

MedPage Today,

Shannon Firth

Government officials announced a joint investigation into the role of private equity and “corporate profiteering” in healthcare during an online workshop hosted by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Tuesday.

The goal of the public inquiry is to collect information to guide agencies’ understanding of the impact of private equity acquisitions in healthcare so they can better leverage enforcement tools to address issues, said FTC Chair Lina Khan.

“Given recent trends, we are concerned that transactions may generate profits for those

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Legal versus Illegal Immigration

16 days ago

Going back to 2006 and one of the founders of Angry Bear below. Immigration being a positive thing and the reasons why. Also, the us population is not replacing itself. We have not yet experienced a decreasing population. It is not that far on the horizon. Replacement rate in the US is ~1.6 as discussed here.

Legal versus Illegal Immigration 2006

Angry Bear By Kash

Some of you have wondered why I haven’t yet made much of an effort to distinguish between legal and illegal immigration. It’s a fair question. Let me share my thoughts with you about the two and explain why my sentiments about immigration in general mean that I don’t worry much about the distinction between the two.

Personally, I tend to see immigration as a positive thing. It

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Social Security Privatization: a Crapo Proposal Redux

16 days ago

Some schemes never see to go away on Saving Private Social Security when in reality Public Citizen Social Security still works, needs no major saving, would take little to fix it, and far short of MMT.

Taken from a 2006 commentary on Angry Bear by “Admin” at the time. I was not here at the time and maybe one of the oldsters can offer up a name. As I read this, what Crapo and the rest of the hooligans are proposing is an exercise in accounting. Some of these guys (all?) are still around.

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Mike Crapo has joined James DeMint, Rick Santorum, Lindsey Graham, and Tom Coburn with another spin on Social Security privatization that Phil Kerpen endorses:

The DeMint-Crapo amendment puts the possibility of meaningful, pro-worker Social

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Forget them the Supreme Court and the Constitution. We are on Our Own

17 days ago

A president assassinated, another pushed out of office, Black citizens beaten, cities burning, a war in Asia, and a rogue president.

As taken and inspired by “The Supreme Court and the Constitution were never going to save us from Donald Trump,” Vox, Ian Millhiser

A bit of Vox for you this morning. I am using bits of this VOX post. This commentary is by Ian Millhiser from earlier in March. His is good and my is rough but the idea is there.

What puzzles me is the topic. I don’t mean trump perse. I do not understand why we are being abandon by the systems in place which should just ride trump out of town. I never did imagine SCOTUS allowing a single state to disqualify a presidential candidate. It makes no sense. If he is going to be

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DeJoy Arrogance on Display at Houston Texas Post Office

18 days ago

More US Post Office news. Louis DeJoy’s plan creates havoc in Houston. I have been watching the unfolding of Louis Dejoy’s arrogance in the transitional plan of the USPS to something more efficient and profitable.

It has become a pitiful comedy of errors and arrogance by Louis in implementing his master plan. He still fails to recognize the U.S. Post Offices are not a commercial enterprises meant to be profitable. The of the Post Office is in being able to deliver the mail to every citizen in the US regardless of whether it is in metropolitan Houston or Loving County, Texas with a population of 64. The latter being just as important as the former in mail delivery.

DeJoy does not get it and never will. The former and the most distant person on

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A Military Nightmare Called PTSD

18 days ago

PTSD is a scourge for military veterans. The good news is that the VA system provides specialized, high-quality care for PTSD; the bad news is that corporate-friendly politicians are privatizing this vital public health system.

PTSD Is a Nightmare. A Fully Funded VA Can Provide Relief,

jacobin.com, Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early

As the introduction say, there is politics involved with the VA. Moving veterans to commercial healthcare is a profit-oriented plan. It serves no person other than profits. Plus, they do not know how to treat veterans. It’s the money people which the politicians reap in for their campaigns.

Steve Early and I had a few conversations in the past. Given my background in the military, he was curious. I was also curious

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Getting the Truth on Medicare Advantage Plans v Traditional Medicare

19 days ago

Don Berwick says MA growth “should be slowed or stopped”

Obama CMS Chief Don Berwick: Medicare Advantage Plans Game the System,

MedPage Today, Cheryl Clark

Ok, this is a long one. It is easy to follow. Donald Berwick is worthwhile read. As written several times on Angry Bear, the biggest driver of healthcare cost is “pricing” increases as reflected in hospitals, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare insurance. It was Dr. Donald Berwick while head of Centers for Medicare and Medicaid during the 1st half of the Obama administration who said, repeatedly, that at least 1/3 of Medicare dollars was wasted on unnecessary tests, procedures and drugs that provide no benefit for the patient. Angry Bear. It is even worse with Medicare Advantage.

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Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, is going after debt resulting from healthcare

20 days ago

KFF Health News: In 2010 President Barack Obama signed legislation to create the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Its purpose he said “the new agency had one priority . . . looking out for people, not big banks, not lenders, not investment houses.” But people . . .

Since then, the CFPB has done its share of policing mortgage brokers, student loan companies, and banks. More recently, the U.S. health care system has turned tens of millions of Americans into debtors. The CFPB financial watchdog is increasingly working to protect beleaguered patients, adding hospitals, nursing homes, and patient financing companies to the list of institutions regulators are probing.

Just how big is the problem of medical debt?

Most consumers with

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How health insurers profit by hoarding your data

20 days ago

A comprehensive All-Payer Claims Databases would help the health care system become more effective and efficient. The Department of Labor could do something about that, but hasn’t.

Merrill at GoozNews is depicting why providers and software vendors closely guard patient information, maintaining exclusivity so as patients have to rely on them. Insurance companies follow suit so as to maintain the frequency and particularity of care for disease, etc. to set payments. Reporting requirements would resolve much of the difficulty in healthcare.

Originally Published at GoozNews by Merrill Goozner

Last week, I reviewed how health care providers and their computer software vendors refuse to share patients’ electronic health records (EHRs). This issue

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Biden publishes SOTU Healthcare Proposals: Permanent subsidy upgrade, $2K drug cap for all, more

21 days ago

I am late in getting this information up on Angry Bear. I should have checked fellow Michigander Charles Gaba’s site ACA Signups. Most of the time, Charles is way ahead of me on healthcare just like some of the others are from time to time.

This is a rundown of what President Biden is going to tell us tonight. What he intends to offer US Citizens, with Congressional help, and with regard to healthcare. Keep this post as a marker and let’s see what he makes happen and what politics will block just for spite and to punish citizens.

Ahead of tomorrow evening’s State of the Union address . . . via the White House:

President Biden publishes SOTU Healthcare Proposals: Permanent subsidy upgrade, $2K drug cap for all, more, ACA Signups, Charles

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What One Economist Wants to Hear on Thursday’s SOTU Address

22 days ago

Up-Dated: Dean Baker, CEPR co-founder and Senior Economist, shares what he wants to hear from the President during Thursday’s #SOTU2024.

[embedded content]
State of the Union 2024: Biden’s Economic Record, youtube.comDean Baker and CEPR hopes Joe Biden reminds the country of his strong economic record while offering substantive policy pathways to bring more relief to the hard issues many face every day. He surmises what President Joe Biden’s may offer citizens a quick runup of what was accomplished and avoided and what still needs to be accomplished in 2024. “Some” aspects . . .

economic record

24 months of below 4% Unemployment in spite of a pandemic.

Real Wages are growing faster than inflation.

Work

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Addressing Credit Card late fees and Supply Chain Pricing

23 days ago

My beef has been with the Supply Chain. Yep, you can be forced into manufacturing less product due to part shortages. Unless you are air freighting that stuff or running OT, costs do not necessarily increase due to producing less. Another situation? In 2008, the calls would come in about raising prices in a take it or leave it manner.

This was in regard to semiconductors mostly. It was not due to increased costs as much as increased demand. A rule of conduct or maxim claims if I order more for immediate delivery, I will get them quicker. It does not work that way as demand does not increase capacity. If you read “The Goal,” the author makes a point of using whatever capacity (new and old) that is available to meet demand. But in temporary bottle

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Big Mac Index Measuring Purchasing Power Parity Globally

23 days ago

Wikipedia: The Big Mac Index is a price index published since 1986 by The Economist. It is an informal way of measuring the purchasing power parity (PPP) between two currencies and providing a test of the extent to which market exchange rates result in goods costing the same in different countries. It “seeks to make exchange-rate theory a bit more digestible. The index compares the relative price worldwide to purchase a Big Mac, at McDonald’s restaurants. The results from November 2022.

The theory underpinning the Big Mac index stems from the concept of purchasing power parity (PPP). PPP superimposes the same Big Mac in various countries priced in the currency of that country and compares the exchange rates between various currencies. Given the

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Commercial Interests Lobbying Against Railroad Safety kill Legislation

23 days ago

A bit of a rewrite on this article. Still a little too long. Talking about railroads, the East Palestine derailment February 2023 crash and how little has been done since then. Outside interests including Koch Industries have been blocking much needed reform through their lobbying of friendly resources in Congress. A good read.

Last year’s toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, prompted new legislation with the aim of making railways safer. However, the incessant lobbying by the Koch network and its web of conservative operatives, killed the bill.

The Koch Network Is Lobbying Against Rail Safety, Jacobin, Freddy Brewster

One year after a toxic train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, bipartisan legislation making the nation’s

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