The Angry Bear

Healthcare in the United States of America has always been difficult and the costs are commercially driven with some give to what the market will bear. While not perfect, the ACA was a huge step forward in providing affordable healthcare. Unfortunately, Ted Kennedy died shortly afterwards. Senator Kennedy was also advocating for Long Term Care. There are better ways to pay for healthcare. Single Payer eliminates the different administrative...

This was posted at 8:03 AM at the Bonddad Blog Thursday. I see other venues having similar reports up also. I am sometimes late in posting NDd’s economic commentaries. Ex-housing, PCE inflation, like CPI inflation, is under the Fed’s 2% target  – by New Deal democrat Note: I may not be around for the ISM manufacturing or construction spending reports this morning. If so, I’ll comment later (maybe over the weekend) about them. What I’ll be...

Lloyd answers the question about how Americans will be getting their food from fast food establishments in the future. Innovative but does little for the environment and also for people’s health setting aside the argument of fast food not being necessarily healthy. To catch the rest of Lloyd’s article, click on the Carbon Upfront link. In the future, everything will be a drive-through, Carbon Upfront, Lloyd Alter Hamburger’s History The...

Probably told the story of meeting Senator Dick Durbin at Showdown in Chicago during the ABA Bankers Roaring Twenties dance convention at the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers. Had asked him when were Dems going to take a stand and start acting like the party of the majority. Richard Trumka’s remarks are still up and can be read. Much of the other news on the protest of ~5000 protesting the results of banking crash has disappeared. GOP Melts...

In August 2020, I got my first jab of the Moderna COVID vaccine as part of their Phase III trial. One month later, I got the booster. 12 hrs after that, I had the classic symptoms–headache, fever, muscle and joint pain–indicating that I was in the vaccine arm of the trial and not the control. I went on to get a blood draw and have myself tested to confirm the inference. Since then, I’ve had three additional jabs, most recently about three weeks ago....

Despite a few soft spots, consumer income and spending continued to power ahead in October  – by New Deal democrat The monthly personal income and spending report is along with the jobs report, one of the two most important coincident metrics for the entire economy, because it is a fairly comprehensive look at the consumer sector. In October both nominal and real personal income and spending increased 0.2%. Since the beginning of the...

Here we are agin, trying to make it easier to trade derivatives. Never mind the lessons we thought we learned when Goldman Sachs called on AIG to ante up. There were little in reserve for the swaps and AIG was ready to collapse. Congress and the Fed (or reverse) saved them and the economy. The issue was Wall Street and Greenspan did not take swaps/derivatives seriously even after the Bankers Trust and Long-Term Capital Management. LTCM crisis –...

Despite the continued elevation of continued claims, initial claims signal continued expansion  – by New Deal democrat I’ll comment on personal income and spending later this morning, but let’s start out with our weekly update on jobless claims. Initial claims rose 7,000 to 218,000, while the 4 week average declined -500 to 220,000. With a one week delay, continuing claims rose 86,000 to 1.927 million, a nearly 2 year high: On the more...

Commenter and reader J.P. Mc Jefferson linked to this Lawrence O’Donnell Youtube article “Media still not ready to cover Trump after years of his lies.” It appears; Donald Trump called on the government to “come down hard” on MSNBC and not one major broadcast news network covered it. MSNBC’s Lawrence O’Donnell explains why this is a product of what Brian Klaas calls the “banality of crazy.” It does make you wonder if negative reporting...

Briefly, every morning I get an array of emails in my In-Box offering up what they think can be interesting reads. I would definitely read Economist David Zetland student’s writings on water shortages in other countries. Most Interesting Read Economist David Zetland’s Students Studying the Impact of Water Shortage in Europe, The one-handed economist, The Hague. What something interesting to do? Write to David’s students on his site. David does...