Having to file with the VA for issues resulting from being stationed at Camp Lejeune, I can see why such a maneuver by Koch Industries is frustrating. GP is attempting to avoid all responsibility. At least, the VA will hear you out. Then take their time deciding. One family friend (Marine) had to file three times before the VA accepted his claim. He died shortly afterwards.

Georgia-Pacific’s Asbestos Trust Fund Opposed by Senators

by Devin Golden

Mesothelioma Guide

A bipartisan trio of U.S. Senators issued a scathing statement opposing Georgia-Pacific’s attempt to file for bankruptcy, create a small asbestos trust fund to pay off claimants, and avoid lawsuits from people affected by asbestos exposure in their products.

This strategy is

More People Moved Farther Away from City Centers Since Covid-19

by Lindsay Spell and Marc Perry

CENSUS.Gov

I guess people did not like the threat of catching Covid in crowded areas so they are going to the suburbs. Even if they are in less populous areas, they still will have to get the vaccines and distance themselves.

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In a possible sign of the COVID-19 pandemic’s lasting impact, the country’s fastest-growing places are increasingly likely to be far-flung exurban communities on the outer margins of metro areas. This reveal according to July 1, 2023, population estimates released today.

Fewer of the fastest-growing places between 2022 and 2023 were inner suburbs than in 2019 before the pandemic. More were on the far

Daniel is based in western Europe where he teaches. Many of his students write essays which he posts from time to time. WE are allowed to answer his students as to the accuracy or thoughts of the essays.

I am sure the news he obtains about eastern Europe is far mor accurate than what we are getting in the US about Russia and its causalities.

Putin’s choice: 500,000 casualties

by Daniel Zetland

The one-handed economist

This figure shows Russian losses in Ukraine. The 500,000 figure is for casualties, i.e., dead and wounded. According to Perplexity, 100,000 -180,000 of these are deaths.

How do these losses compare to other Russian fighting?

The scale of Russian losses in just over a year of fighting in Ukraine already exceeds

Memorial Day . . . I am sure everyone is out cooking burgers and hot dogs except in the desert where the temperature is triple digit. And what is this old Marine Sergeant gonna do? Certainly not get out in the heat.

I will drink a beer to honor the friends I lost and in the silence of my home. No parades, no John Wayne movies, just silence and thinking of the times I drank a beer with them.

Robert Reich has an interesting commentary up about Labor and the biggies trying to make them submit to their whims of less wages, no bennies, and never-ending demands by them. The egos rein. The best weapon against them is not to buy their products. Not that they would care. They would retire and snub their nose at you till we tax them and their

Tom Dispatch site commentary suggested by Dale Coberly . . .

Tom: It’s not complicated. This country, as TomDispatch regular and co-chair of the Poor People’s Campaign Liz Theoharis makes clear today, is simply unprepared — unprepared, that is, to keep all too many Americans even reasonably healthy and well. It matters little that this may be the wealthiest country on the planet . . .

The Great Unwinding

by Liz Theoharis

TomDispatch.com

The slang definition of “unwinding” means “to chill.” Other definitions include: to relax, disentangle, undo — all words that, on the surface, appear both passive and peaceful. And yet in Google searches involving such seemingly harmless definitions of decompressing and resting, news articles abound

By Ten Bears

Homeless on the High Desert

Mormon Militia Moves To Take Over Central, Eastern Oregon Government

Note that the link is to an article in The Guardian, a British publication that is to my observation the straightest, least bias / most honest reporting today. Bear in mind as you read these happenings out on the Oregon High Desert that people are reading about them in England, and around the English-speaking world

Sometimes when things click they really click, and can be a thing of beauty

This clicked with a chuckle at the ((( Greater Idaho ))) movement the other day, chuckling not just because my grandparents were State of Jeffersonians and what the spuds think is new isn’t new but because it became the basis for the

By Merrill Goozner

GoozNews

How high-deductible health insurance plans, touted by free marketeers, caused the medical debt crisis and degraded public health.

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The 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, best known for its senior citizen drug plans, also encouraged the rapid expansion of high-deductible health plans (HDHPs). It allowed people, mostly well-off, to put pre-tax earnings into health savings accounts (HSAs) – the equivalent of an IRA for out-of-pocket health care expenses.

The “purported advantage of HDHPs” was that they would “lower health care costs by causing patients to be more cost-conscious,” a contemporaneous Commonwealth Fund analysis said. Since people would be spending their own money on the high deductible, which

The IEA report covers a February-to-February timeframe 2023 – 2024. When the IEA speaks of evolution, they are reviewing the OECD usage and direction for 13 months. There is a brief summation in the beginning for Fossil Fuel. Renewable Sources, and Nuclear power production. The charts tell the rest of the story for the OECD associated countries.

Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development Electricity Production, IEA (2024), Monthly Electricity Statistics, IEA, Paris

In February 2024, the total net electricity production in total OECD reached 869.1 TWh, marking a 2.3% increase compared to the same period last year.

Fossil Fuels

Electricity generation from fossil fuels amounted to 397.3 TWh in February 2024, exhibiting a decline

By Melvin Blackman

QUARTZ

Last week? We were talking about market manipulation at the business level and also the state level. The industry intended to cut production so as to maintain prices if California capped prices. California was putting a new program in place to regulate pricing. An AZ state rep was going to California to ask them not to pass the bill. All are forms of market manipulation and one oil industry person did not like what I was saying.

This week, we have Joe Biden planning to put some extra gasoline out on the market to keep pricing level or even lower it. Gross government economic manipulation. Typically, this does not work as well as it goes overboard or has limited results. Joe is hoping to keep prices low for Memorial

By Lloyd Alter

Carbon Upfront!

Llyod discusses the changing needs of the largest retirement population to be occurring in the next decade or baby boomers. Baby Boomers are on the verge of requiring smaller living spaces in close proximity to transportation, shopping, and healthcare. Easier and greater accessibility is paramount going forward.as they will not be as mobile as they once were. Cars may be out of the question.

Living quarters can be smaller as family has moved onward. Much of the infrastructure is still not in place or has to be refurbished to handle an older population. Open space for them to be outside needs to be planned. A community with less sprawl and greater mobility. Read on . . .

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People may not want

This is kind of an interesting story. The former Surgeon General to Trump is complaining about his ER bill after walking up the 2700 foot high Camelback mountain in AZ. Done it. That is not a high climb. I suspect the heat and insufficient water or hydration did him in.

The other point is he is complaining about a healthcare bill. This is the man who had the president’s ear. I doubt he brought up the cost of healthcare to trump once. As far as a run-in with the ER? That is a reality for most people.

— Everyone must be able to access necessary care without fear of financial ruin.

I’m a Former Surgeon General and I Couldn’t Believe My $10k Medical Bill

by Jerome Adams, MD, MPH

MedPage Today

In a recent tweet that resonated with

Florida Legislature agreed to pass the optional Medicaid expansion. A year later it says no. The federal government pays about 69 cents of every dollar spent on the program. Florida still wants kids to pay also.

More than 22K children dropped from Florida KidCare in 2024 as state challenges federal eligibility protections

by Christine Jordan Sexton

Florida Politics

AB: In a move that some have called “egregious,” or glaringly ignorant in some fashion. Hey, what the heck, it is Florida. In any case in January, Florida has dropped more than 22,000 children from a subsidized health insurance program called KidCare for failing to pay premiums despite the federal government saying it cannot. Kids don’t vote, so Desantis is safe.

State data

This morning starting at 7AM and 30 minutes apart. I ran across all two healthcare commentaries on MedPage and one on Florida Politics. No mistake on three healthcare posts posted in a row. Purposeful. Short commentaries. Good Reads. Discussion provoking.

by Elise Gould

EPI

Average hourly wage growth has exceeded inflation for 12 straight months, according to new Bureau of Labor Statistics data released this morning. This real (or inflation-adjusted) wage growth is a key indicator of how well the average worker’s wage can improve their standard of living. As inflation continues to normalize, I’m optimistic more workers will experience real gains in their purchasing power.

The dark blue line in the figure below plots year-over-year real hourly wage changes for all private-sector workers.

Year-over-year real wage changes measure the percent change in wages in one month compared with the same month a year prior. Monthly or even quarterly changes in wages are notably more volatile. While

Dale Coberly presents another methodology to save Social Security without cutting benefits to the elderly. Any of these will work and does not involve taxing the rich which could result in a reversal with each new administration. It is incremental and small portions of a dollar or two on a weekly basis. And it still keeps SS as the third rail.

Starting in 2026 with . . .

Raising the payroll tax one half percent each for people and companies in 2026. This is half of what polls have said people prefer to any cuts. Too small for anyone, even employers. to really feel bad about.

Starting the next year continue to raise the payroll tax two tenths of a percent per year. this is two dollars per week per year. again, too small to notice.

Stop

This report dropped into my email box a day or so ago. It hits upon a topic which has plagued big cities since before I was a child. Early-on in Chicago, urban renewal was the thought to be the right idea and the wrong concept.

Public housing development in Chicago, Illinois. Cabrini-Green was a model of successful public housing. Poor planning, physical deterioration, and managerial neglect, coupled with gang violence, drugs, and chronic unemployment changed it. It turned into a national symbol of urban blight and failed housing policy. In 2000 the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) began demolishing Cabrini-Green buildings as part of an ambitious and controversial plan to transform all of the city’s public housing projects. The last of the

Steve Hutkins again addressing the implementation of the DeJoy system in Georgia.

Supervisory competency came up in a message to the PRC. There has always been a give and take between management and labor. In this instance, managements probably have the same labor experience as what present labor has. If that is not the issue, then what is?

New system implemented by DeJoy and a lack of training of Supervisors and Labor. They are learning as they struggle to work with the system. Delivery performance is way down. Questions are being asked and fingers being pointed,.

Postal supervisors tell postal leadership, Don’t blame us for DFA failures

by Steve Hutkins

Save The Post Office

Resistance to the Postal Service’s implementation of

I will probably add a topic of my own choice. you do bot have to follow it.

Keep in mind, the chart we presented a while back, a comparison of how healthcare expenses compare to GDP or take of GDP to pay for it. Still less than 18%. What you are looking at is a finer breakdown of the healthcare costs. What do we want to improve?

Healthcare spending in the U.S. increased by 4.1% in 2022 to $4.4 trillion or $13,493 per capita. This growth rate is comparable to pre-pandemic rates (4.1% in 2019). Although government spending to manage the pandemic led to substantial increases in NHE, these expenditures significantly declined in 2021. Utilization of medical goods and services did rebound. By 2022, top-level patterns in health spending more closely resembled the pre-pandemic period.

The 2022 Health Care Cost and Utilization

The good news is electricity productivity is up. Natural gas is fueling the productivity increase in the Americas while its usage decreased globally. Coal usage is down. Too bad Manchin did not move West Virginia to better economics. Fossil fuels are still a large part of the production of electricity.

In February 2024, the total net electricity production in total OECD reached 869.1 TWh, marking a 2.3% increase compared to the same period last year.

Electricity generation from fossil fuels amounted to 397.3 TWh in February 2024, exhibiting a decline of 5.2% (equivalent to 21.8 TWh) compared to February 2023. This reduction was largely driven by lower electricity output from coal, which experienced an 8.3% year-on-year decrease, followed by gas

AB: For years, Clarence sat in silence and did not say much. It was only when Roberts took over, did he begin to make his mark as a justice. He will probably be remembered as one of the worst appointments to SCOTUS. Before his appointment, he told a story about dependency on welfare.

Thomas opposed public assistance because it caused (he claimed) his sister and her children to become dependent on welfare payments. In 1981, he said:

“She gets mad when the mailman is late with her welfare check,” Thomas said in a remark that has since been widely quoted. “That is how dependent she is. What’s worse is that now her kids feel entitled to the check, too. They have no motivation for doing better or getting out of that situation.”

A journalist

By Laura B. Attanasio and Kimberley H. Geissler

Health Affairs

This article is the latest in the Health Affairs Forefront series, Accountable Care for Population Health, featuring analysis and discussion of how to understand, design, support, and measure patient-centered, cost-efficient care under the umbrella of accountable care.

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The United States has the highest maternal mortality rate of any industrialized country, and it has increased in recent years. Other more common negative maternal health outcomes such as severe maternal morbidity are also on the rise. Improving the quality of perinatal care to address these poor maternal health outcomes is a pressing policy concern. More than 40 percent of births in the US each year

By Ron Bousso

Reuters

A brief on what BP is doing. My guess is they are going to cut output to drive the market. It could be that other oil companies could fill the gap or move with BP. However, they prefer trump in office so making Biden look bad is a realistic plan for them. Their attorneys are already writtening the executive orders.

Speaking to Reuters on Tuesday after BP announced $2.7 billion in first quarter profits, CEO Auchincloss said BP may overshoot or undershoot the 2030 target.

“Two million [(boed) Barrels Of Oil Equivalent Per Day] is a decent number to stick by right now. Could it be higher? Yes. Could it be lower? Yes.” This kind of plays into what other sources are saying. It suggests a previous goal to reduce its oil and

I was going to finish this up two days ago. Except I got sick and was sweating for two nights in a row. And slept most of the first day and some of today. I had been fighting this for a about 5 days and then it came om stronger. Today, I feel I am back, but at half speed.

I posted “Senator Warrens Clawback on money looted by Cereberus” here. She called it:“The third and best source of funds would be a clawback of money looted by Cerberus, de la Torre, and MPT, based on a prosecution for fraudulent conveyance, misrepresentation to shareholders, and other possible criminal charges.

As a settlement, restitution would have to be paid to the hospitals, under new ownership.“

Hospital Heist Seeks Protection in the Ponzi-Friendliest Court in

It appears rent, transportation, and medical care services are the culprits holding up a decrease in inflation. Medicare does not surprise me at all. Harvard School of Health blames the rise of prices on administrative expenses, corporate greed and price gouging, and higher utilization of costly medical technology.

What to Look for in the April CPI

by Dean Baker

CEPR

The overall and core Consumer Price Index (CPI) both increased by 0.4 percent in March as the path towards slower inflation has, at least temporarily, stalled. The increase in the overall CPI was caused by a 1.1 percent rise in energy prices, which went along with a modest 0.1 percent rise in food prices.

The core index rose 0.4 percent for the third consecutive month. It

Pharma companies providing pharmaceuticals exclusive to them have vast amounts of control in availability and or pricing. Either can result in increased costs to the patient. Economist Timothy Taylor reviews one particular instance with Teva Pharmaceuticals. Collaboration with other companies to control pricing appears to be Teva’s Director of Strategic Customer Marketing Nisha Patel’s strong suits.

by Timothy Taylor

Conversable Economist

Imagine in the market for generic drugs, a group of companies form a cartel to raise prices on the products controlled by their group. Other companies were not involved. What pattern might you expect to see for the prices of drugs controlled by the cartel, or not controlled by the cartel. Amanda Starc and

I will not be Posting on May 12. Sorry!

I will catch up later.

Still hurting on a Sunday. Hoping this will pass by Monday. Big thank you to Eric and Ken for posting this Sunday. I would not have been able to do it.

Queen Claude and Anne Boleyn

by Claude Scales

self absorbed boomer

In my post about the global art market I noted that my given name, Claude, is gender neutral in French. Today, thanks to Tina Brown’s review of Hunting the Falcon: Henry VIII, Anne Boleyn and the Marriage that Shook Europe, by John Guy and Julia Fox, I know there was a Queen Claude of France (image: School of Jean Clouet, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons). She was consort of King François I from 1515 until her death in 1524. During their nine years of marriage, she and the King had seven children. One of them succeeded his father as King Henri II.The connection between Queen Claude and Anne Boleyn is, as Ms. Brown notes, that Anne served as the Queen’s “teenage

In preparation for a renewed reign of the insurrectionist, energy sources and their associations are writing up executive orders to reverse much of what Pres. Joe Biden has done over 4 years. If you recall, the same was done after Barack Obama left the presidency. Many or most of Obama’s initiatives were reversed by an incoming president who would have trouble writing a paragraph much less an executive order. A bit different in the latter as it took a different view of a black man in the presidency.

A Little Bold and Gross

by Ben Lefebvre

The U.S. oil industry is drawing up ready-to-sign executive orders for Donald Trump aimed at pushing natural gas exports, cutting drilling costs and increasing offshore oil leases in case he wins a second

The 2024 Social Security Trustees Report came out on Monday, May 6. You can find dozens of press reports and other commentary online, most of which are written by people who actually know nothing about Social Security except what they read in the papers. Some are written by people who do know what they are talking about but write in a way that is likely to mislead.

For today I am just going to look at the May 6 analysis: “Analysis of the 2024 Social Security Trustees’ Report-Mon, 05/06/2024 – 12:00,” Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Here are some quotes from CRFB followed my comments.

CRFB Social Security faces large and rising imbalances. According to the Trustees, Social Security will run cash deficits of $3 trillion over the