The Angry Bear

I am offering up something different to Angry Bear readers. The offer is a chance to listen to an article on Radio Atlantic. Or you can read the article: “Read This Before You Buy That Sweater,” The Atlantic, by Hanna Rosin Or at least read the tag. An introduction: “We’re in the coldest season. We’re in the shopping season. We’re in the season of hygge. All the cues point to buying yourself a new cozy sweater. Don’t do it, until you...

Brad DeLong asked me if I had an explanation of how the US economy managed to land softly. He is confident that it is softly landing. This encourages me to actually try to do my job for once and act as a macroeconomist, and also to return to blogging here some. In the spirit of challenging reopening, I will indulge myself by skimping on links, simply asserting things which I could and should back up with a bit of Google. The basic story is that...

More economic news an d this time new single family housing. Completing the housing market picture for November, sales decline bigly, and prices remain down YoY   – by New Deal democrat Our final important pre-year end release was also the final item of housing data for the month, new home sales. To reiterate, the value of this metric is that it is the most leading of all housing metrics. Its big drawback is that it is very noisy and...

December 21, 2023, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson The Washington Post editorial board today wrote that “the battle for democracy will be fought—and won” by “explaining to the world why freedom matters to everyone, every day.” So, on an evening when our power has finally been restored, but too late for me to do a deep dive on anything, let’s see what that might look like from today’s news:  For years now, the U.S. right...

Fixing a Critical Safety Net Program: 340B, Third Way, Darbin Wofford and David Kendall – Part 2 The Solution: A Patient-Centered 340B Program The 340B program is an essential tool for uninsured and vulnerable patients to access lifesaving medicines. But program discounts should improve patient access and lower costs—not pad hospital profits and incentivize further consolidation in the health care system. To address these issues,...

Trump & Constitutional Amendment 14, Section 3, J.P. Jefferson Posting Trump & Constitutional Amendment 14, Section 3 Should Donald Trump be on the ballot in 2024? Now before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS), appealed from the recent 4-3 decision of the Colorado Supreme Court. I’m pretty sure that the Trump-loaded SCOTUS will find some bizarre interpretation of the obvious and allow the 4-time indicted, twice-impeached...

It appears there will be no layoffs pre-Christmas and Christmas. After Christmas, the delays in implementing EVs at GM will result in layoffs in Michigan. A holly jolly holiday season for initial jobless claims  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 2,000 last week to 205,000, while the four-week average declined -1,500 to 212,000. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims declined -1,000 to 1.865 million: No...

A couple of other internet places have Jack Smith’s filing of a Writ of Certiorari to SCOTUS. Rather than use them I chose to copy the verbiage directly from the Writ. This is not a hard read at all. Basically, Jack is saying, I know what you are doing trump. The United States and its people will not stand for your delay(s) in bringing you to justice for the January 6th insurrection which may allow you to run for the presidency. A partial of the...

Brief and interesting charting of the top countries in GDP Ranking. As taken from “World GDP Rankings 2023 | Top 10 Countries Ranked By GDP” – Forbes India. If you have not been on the IMF site, it is worth a look as there is plenty of data and ways to sort the data. The top 10 largest economies/ richest countries in the world in 2023, sourced from IMF data (as of December 04, 2023) “The United States of America, China, Japan, Germany,...

Angry Bear has posted about the 340B Drug Pricing program several times now. What is key to this program is it making available medicines which are out of reach for those who are lower income and uninsured patients. However, the program is being used to divert funding to other hospital facilities. Some are going as far as closing portions of a facility, moving the care to other facilities, and maintaining the original facility so as to be eligible...