Over the last 6 months, the seasonal adjusted index has increased at a 1.5% annual rate.

by Bill McBride

@ Calculated Risk

Note: The Freddie Mac index is a repeat sales index using only loans purchased by Fannie and Freddie and includes appraisals. See FAQs here. Freddie has data for all states and many cities. For house prices, I’m currently following Case-Shiller, FHFA, CoreLogic, ICE, the NAR median prices, and this Freddie Mac index.

Freddie Mac reported that its “National” Home Price Index (FMHPI) increased 0.11% month-over-month on a seasonally adjusted (SA) basis in August. On a year-over-year basis, the National FMHPI was up 3.7% in August, down from up 4.5% YoY in July.  The YoY increase peaked at 19.1% in July 2021, and for this

I did not know this. In Phoenix, etc. The subject of this commentary, “Invitation Homes” has approximately 7300 available homes for rent at prices which would equal a mortgage payment, property taxes, and the required homeowner’s insurance. I am sitting in the middle of all of this in AZ.

The only reason I can think of for not buying is poor credit, bankruptcy, no funds to pay for a realtor, closing, etc. Even so, why would you mess with rental properties? Miscellaneous fees . . .

FTC Takes Action Against Invitation Homes for Deceiving Renters, Charging Junk Fees, Withholding Security Deposits, and Employing Unfair Eviction Practices, Federal Trade Commission

Proposed settlement would require the rental property company “Invitation Homes”

Author Sharon Lerner at ProPublica featured at MedPage Today

AB: Bit of a rewrite to shorten this up for readers at Angry Bear. Just when you think agencies and the management team will do the right thing, they do not. Lower echelon scientists to make public the issues with the findings that were not theirs and made public as theirs.

A watchdog’ ‘s findings of health harms from chemicals was blocked and the finders of fact were retaliated against . . .

More than 3 years ago, a small group of government scientists came forward with disturbing allegations.

During President Donald Trump’s administration, the government scientists claimed their managers at the EPA began pressuring them. This effort was to make the new chemicals they were

Nothing new under the sun here. Maintaining profits has been a matter of fact for decades. It became more popular under Pres. Reagan.

Deere Reports Strong Profits Amid Layoffs of Workers Across Iowa, Des Moines Register

August 13, 2024 and Kevin Baskins at the Des Moines Register reports on the Deere & Company layoffs across the state of Iowa. Layoffs happen when the economy turns down, companies make mistakes, or when a new competitor hits the market. Just about anything can prompt a company to cut labor. Easiest thing in the world to do with Labor even though a company may have to kick into the Iowa’s unemployment funding for its present 22,000 employees. Neither are there plans to move Deere outside of the North American continent.

By Bill McBride

Calculated Risk

Single-family serious delinquencies increased slightly in August, and multi-family serious delinquencies decreased slightly.

Freddie Mac reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in August was 0.52%, up from 0.51% June. Freddie’s rate is down year-over-year from 0.55% in August 2023.  This is below the pre-pandemic lows.

Freddie’s serious delinquency rate peaked in February 2010 at 4.20% following the housing bubble and peaked at 3.17% in August 2020 during the pandemic.Fannie Mae reported that the Single-Family serious delinquency rate in August was 0.50%, up from 0.49% in July. The serious delinquency rate is down year-over-year from 0.53% in August 2023.  This is also below the pre-pandemic

Good Old Days? A story . . . I was at Parker-Hannifin Fluid Power for a bit over 4-years. Due to the economic slowdown in 1982, they let me go. I was replaced by someone out of sales. The explanation? His wanting to learn about manufacturing hydraulic and air cylinders. It was obvious he was losing his job in Sales. My boss came out of Sales and knew little about production planning and control. Over 4 years I made him look good by cutting inventory costs and improving distribution. So, there was no late orders and inventory was low.

He started a conversation with me one time where I disagreed with what he was saying to do. Being me and knowing the job, I asked a question and he agreed with me, asked another and he agreed also, and asked one last

But not enough for everyone.”

A partial taken from The Conversation on Drug Prices

The impact of the drug negotiations has been modest at best. There is a lot of talk and hurrahs. The results are not there yet. When I go to the outside for care, the VA pays the doctors at a minimum. If they want VA patients, them they accept minimal payments. If the VA disappeared those minimal payments would disappear. Like healthcare, pharmaceuticals are costly (a polite way of saying overpriced). I have a post somewhere discussing the ICER review of the top 10 in pricing. I also have a report using MedPac information too. I just have not finished them up to present.

The following? It is just a review of what id going on or has been going on in

Looking at business firms by age, what type of firms create jobs, and in what industry. In manufacturing, it would be older firms (eleven years or older) creating the most jobs. Older firms of eleven or more years are also creating more jobs in Retail. As we look at each category, older firms play a distinct role in job creation. The only time we see a distinct difference is in Accommodations where start-ups and one- to five-year-old firms have an impact.

The next chart (below) shows how firms vary in job creation, As you can see Firms of unknown age are having a lesser impact on job creation. Firms of eleven years or older are creating more jobs as they age. This could be due to adapting to the economy more so than some of the others depicted

Louis DeJoy, the Trump-appointed head of the United States Postal Service (USPS), is screwing with the 2024 election. His failure could impact the outcome of a close election. If it is close. With the help of a former NC postmaster and Steve Hutkins of Save the Post Office, we have been tracking the lack of progress with the USPS.

Keep in mind, the USPS goal is to deliver mail to every segment of the population, no matter where they live, and on a timely basis. That goal has been disrupted many times over by political interests who believe they could make it better “if” and those who are advocating against it and stymieing it efforts. Brief summation below.

“Dejoy has faced criticism and calls to step down since 2020, after he instituted

Excellent reporting by Motor Trend revealing how a new tech radio gives you music and can also eaves-drop on you. The result of eaves dropping is to schedule commercials that may appeal to your interests. The radio then will program commercial ads that may suit your interests. Maybe by introducing something new?

What do you think? Can you be persuaded by your radio pitching an ad for a new car after hearing you discuss cars with a passenger? A Ford for sure! The influx or commercials on TVs and radios is annoying presently. A radio attempting to appeal to my interests could result in a negative response. Anyone tired yet of political advertisements on TV?

I would turn the radio off or plug in a chip, disk, tape, etc. to avoid the use of my

I wanted to put up the entire report. It is just too long. However, the link is there for addition reading to back up the Executive Summary. Angry Bear has been reporting on the rising costs of pharmaceuticals. Hopefully, the Executive Summary will add to Angry Bears knowledge base.

PBM Report Final with Redactions

House.gov Report

Pharmacy Benefit Managers’ (PBMs) role as intermediaries between drug manufacturers and health insurance providers should have made them, in theory, the best positioned entities to decrease the cost of prescription drugs.1 Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) manage prescription drug plans for health insurance programs, including Medicare, and serve as intermediaries with pharmacies, employers and drugmakers.

There is an assumption by many politicians and believing citizens, the USPS is supposed to be profitable entity and run like a business. This is what the Postmaster General brings to the table as a solution. It was never the goal of the USPS to be such. Its task is to deliver mail to every place in the nation at the same amount of time. This in itself costs.

PMG Dejoy believes this is ok. The USPS can penalize people who live outside of a 50-mile radius of the new distribution centers and increase the costs of first-class mail as the delivery time increases. Something is wrong with the proposed logic.

The issues with the $87 billion in losses? A large part of this was the pre-funding of the USPS retirement plan. This was sponsored by Senator

This not much of a post. It is promoting an extension of the premium credits for those who could not afford healthcare insurance previously. A simple read and a necessary one to make people aware.

195 Congress Members were Calling for an Extension of Enhanced Premium Tax Credits – MedCity News, Marissa Plescia

In letters, members of Congress were urging their leadership to extend the enhanced premium healthcare tax credits which are expiring in 2025. Introduced in 2021, the premium tax credits lowered health insurance costs for millions of people purchasing coverage on the marketplace.

One of the letters was signed by 41 Senators. It was addressed to Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky).

Why home insurance rates are rising so fast across the US. Climate change plays a big role, The Conversation

Millions of Americans have been watching with growing alarm as their homeowner insurance premiums rise and their coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024 across much of the country.

To add insult to injury, those rates go even higher if you make a claim – as much as 25% if you claim a total loss of your home.

Why is this happening?

There are a few reasons, but a common thread: Climate change is fueling more severe weather, and insurers are responding to rising damage claims. The losses are exacerbated by more frequent extreme weather disasters striking densely

September 23, 2024

Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson

Letters from an American

That is how they are describing a desperate Trump .

“There’s nothing sadder than an aging salesman trying to close one last deal,” MSNBC’s Ryan Teague Beckwith wrote on September 21. Beckwith went on to list seven of Trump’s most recent campaign promises, most delivered off the cuff at rallies, that are transparent attempts to close the deal with different groups of voters.

Trump is also threatening voters. On September 19, he told two Jewish audiences that he had not been “treated properly by voters who happen to be Jewish,” and that if he doesn’t win the 2024 election, “the Jewish people would have a lot to do with a loss,” adding in that case, “Israel, in my

By Edward Carver

Common Dreams

In a first-of-its-kind lawsuit, California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Monday sued oil giant ExxonMobil for allegedly deceiving the public about the recyclability of plastics so as to continue increasing production.

The 147-page lawsuit, filed in San Francisco County Superior Court, came following a yearslong  investigation that environmental groups were hoping would lead to legal action. They widely celebrated Bonta’s move.

“This is the single most consequential lawsuit filed against the plastics industry for its persistent and continued lying about plastics recycling,” Judith Enck, founder of the advocacy group Beyond Plastics and a former senior Environmental Protection Agency official, said in

By Chris Dall

University Minnesota.edu

“ambient air pollution and heightened antibiotic use”

A new study by Spanish researchers suggests that short-term exposure to air pollution may be tied to increased antibiotic use in people experiencing respiratory symptoms. The study, was published in JAMA Network Open, found that increases of daily ambient air pollution in 11 Spanish cities over 7 years were associated with increased antibiotic consumption among people who sought care for acute respiratory symptoms on the day of exposure.

Exposure to air pollution has previously been tied to a variety of adverse health effects, among them increased risk of stroke, heart disease, and lung cancer. But the authors of the study say the identification

Trumps Court Cases an Update

by Joyce Vance

Civil Discourse

Just so you know, I am not kidding. This reads as a soap opera. Poor Trump so many issue . . . Full time subscriber to Civil Discourse. Hope ou enjoy his reading of he issues,

~~~~~~~

This week, two very important Legal World developments will take place.

The first is a Mississippi case that could end up having a national impact. On Tuesday, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral argument in RNC v. Wetzel. Mississippi counts mail-in (absentee) ballots that are received up to five business days after an election, so long as they are postmarked on or before election day. The RNC is challenging that process, arguing that extending the count “effectively extends

Commenter Jane on the News Media Lying to the Public Commentary

I know that things cost more now.  Much of that has nothing to do with what the federal government does or does not do.  The government did not force suppliers to raise their profit percentages when their costs went up, that was just greed seizing an opportunity.  Much of the supply chain problem started overseas, with Covid.  Not even Trump’s fault.  

It certainly wasn’t the fault of Biden, Harris, or the Democrats in general that union workers have declined in the last 40 years.  It isn’t their fault that younger voters have never seen inflation, and have no idea how union contracts and COLA clauses protected a good portion of American wages from inflation.  Even the minimum wage

An excellent take on taxing the Black poor and the poor in general. It and its attachments are a good read which is why it is here. Taken from an advertisement.

Tell the House and Senate: It’s time to make our tax code more equitable.

The racial wealth gap has become wider during the past couple of decades. Significant economic events such as the Great Recession and the COVID-19 pandemic have drastically shifted wealth towards the well-off. This at the expense of the poor.

For example, the median wealth gap between Black and white households rose from $172,000 in 2019 to over $214,000 in 2022. Homeownership has not worked to build wealth for Black homeowners to the same extent that it has for white homeowners. This due to factors such as

Previouly . . .

As Dr. Perry Wilson explains; “Different chronic diseases have different patterns of price increases. The biggest increase was seen in diabetes care (1993 – 2013) and driven largely by the rising prices of pharmaceuticals” of which the cost of manufacturing did not increase. Now Secretary of HHS, Alex Azar as the CEO of Eli Lilly raised the price of the century old drug Humalog used to treat diabetes by 345% taking it from $2,657.88 per year to $9,172.80 per year. Healthcare Costs and Its Drivers Today, Angry Bear.

Phama Pricing has always been an issue.

FTC Sues PBMs for Jacking Up Insulin Prices

by David Dayen

The American Prospect

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed suit against the three largest

I follow Dean Baker because it is easy to do so. I do not end up pondering whether something written makes sense or not. Perhaps, my agreement is due to my seeing the same issues and understanding them. However let’s face it, bad news media does sell advertisements which pays for this.

If I told you everything was rosy as documented at Angry Bear, would you read us? You would probably shrug your shoulders and yawn. If we give you something to argue about, you will probably do so. Dean had a brief article up, which I agree with because what he is talking about has or is stilling happening now. I saw similar during and after the 2008 events.

Let’s Be Clear, Harris Has a Problem on the Economy Because the Media Have Lied to the Public, CEPR

I am reading this short piece and wondering how many people will commit to full electric? I do not see this occurring for a while. The batteries just do not last long enough for many people to accept electric vehicles today. Hybrids are going to be around for a while till the technology catches up.

I am thinking 5 years out before there is a battery which will handle a large load for a long period of time before needing recharge. How fast can you recharge? Then how much of the battery can be recharged over time as they do lose capacity.

I think I will wait. There are some people here who do have EVs.

The Economist

The car industry’s effort to decarbonize revolves around replacing petrol with batteries. A growing number of customers want

Review: The World without Us

by The one-handed economist

one-handed-economist.com

I just read this 2007 book by Alan Weisman, and it’s encouraging — not because it gives me any hope for humans but for the Earth.

Weisman goes on a tour of human impact (and destruction), looking at one problem (plastics, pollution, biodiversity, etc.) or place (the oceans or cities) at a time. The book is packed with facts and useful context. Here are a few notes (not quotes!) of interest:

Plastic will take millions of years to disappear, via plate tectonic sublimation. GHGs, OTOH, will be “back to normal” in 100,000 years. Oceanic life, even if all the corals die in the short run, will come back strongly after only a 1,000 years. The same is true for

I am confident many of our moms had Tupperware in the house. High density molded soft plastic which could withstand cold temperature and some degree of heat coming from hot water. Came with lids which could seal food within the container and also burp them to release some air and create a tighter seal. A staple within our household and also my mothers’. The only issue was probably cost.

There were opportunities to hold parties where women would come together, learn what was new, and buy. Tupperware is going bankrupt.

And no, we do not have a cabinet full of Tupperware. Just a few items.

The story of “The Tupperware trap,”

by Lora Kelley

The Atlantic

In the 1940s, a man named Earl Tupper invented a product that would transform how

Purity is impossible, and half measures feel better than nothing but also are a failure. This is in regard to Microplastics which are next to impossible to avoid. And it’s all expensive. If a family is expecting a baby and wants, reasonably, to buy plastic-free baby products. Given everything humanity is learning about the possible impact of plastic on fetal and child development, they would have to be relatively rich to avoid plastics.

The Cost of Avoiding Microplastics

The Atlantic

A placenta is, by definition, new tissue: It grows from scratch over nine months of pregnancy. So when a team of researchers found microplastics in every human placenta they sampled, they were a little bit shocked, Matthew Campen, a professor at the University

These guys are ahead of us.

What Scared Ford’s CEO in China, WSJ

Jim Farley had just returned from China. What the Ford Motor chief executive found during the May visit made him anxious: The local automakers were pulling away in the electric-vehicle race. 

In an early-morning call with fellow board member John Thornton, an exasperated Farley unloaded. 

The Chinese carmakers are moving at light speed, he told Thornton, a former Goldman Sachs executive who spent years as a senior banker in China. They are using artificial intelligence and other tech in cars that is unlike anything available in the U.S. These Chinese EV makers are using a low-cost supply base to undercut the competition on price, offering slick digital features and

Some Information

U.S. Presidents can not remove the Postmaster General. So, Louis is safe if that is what people and the author of this piece seems to think Biden can do.

“The Postmaster General is selected and appointed by the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, which is appointed by the president. The Postmaster General then also sits on the board. The PMG does not serve at the president’s pleasure and can only be dismissed by the Board of Governors.”

President Joe Biden did appoint some new members to the Board of Governors. I am not sure whether there is a majority in favor of trashing DeJoy. Steve Hutkins at Save The Post Office may have an answer. I will ask and see what he says.

However, this is rich in that Louis Dejoy was

Some Information

U.S. Presidents can not remove the Postmaster General. So, Louis is safe if that is what people and the author of this piece seems to think Biden can do.

“The Postmaster General is selected and appointed by the Board of Governors of the Postal Service, which is appointed by the president. The Postmaster General then also sits on the board. The PMG does not serve at the president’s pleasure and can only be dismissed by the Board of Governors.”

President Joe Biden did appoint some new members to the Board of Governors. I am not sure whether there is a majority in favor of trashing DeJoy. Steve Hutkins at Save The Post Office may have an answer. I will ask and see what he says.

However, this is rich in that Louis Dejoy was

Reduction in Drug Deaths is 2024

Before I start on this. Credit to Digsby at HullaBaLoo and will be using parts of the same NPR report also. The CDC graphs define the decrease in drug usage nationally and also state by state. Some good news for once on drug addiction.

Products – Vital Statistics Rapid Release – Provisional Drug Overdose Data, CDC.gov

The three charts I am showing reflect totals and do not reflect a state-by-state reduction in Overdose deaths. There is a table reflecting a state-by-state prediction and actual reduction which can be found here: Data Table for Figure 1b: Percent Change in 12 Month-ending Count of Drug Overdose Deaths, by Jurisdiction. It is under the last chart on the site. Clicking the down arrow will give you