The Angry Bear

My whole life has been centered around mathematics. It was not until much later when I was told I may, might, could have a talent for writing. It did not dawn on me then as my life’s course or desire was to be an engineer of some type. It never happened because of a little downturn in demand for engineers in the seventies. VP of Patents and Trademarks at USG convinced me then to get some type of degree in Business. I had two years of Calculus to back...

Controversial? My Background? XMarine Sergeant E5 served 68-71. Not an 0311. Was made a Sergeant a couple of months into my third year. Excellent shot with M14. Served during the Vietnam years when we were doing most of the fighting. US pulls out and South Vietnam collapses. US assists Afghanistan in fighting. Does most of the fighting and trains their military. Trump plans a pullout and Biden does it. Afghanistan collapses. Russia attacks...

Jobless claims: good news all around  – by New Deal democrat This was one of the best weeks as to jobless claims all year. Initial claims declined -17,000 to 202,000, a tie for the 2nd lowest number in 10 months. The four week average declined -7,750 to 213,250. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims rose 20,000 to 1.876 million: Even more importantly for forecasting purposes, the YoY% changes both for the weekly number and the...

Having lived in Michigan for twenty-seven plus years, we became aware of PFAS in the surrounding water and land towards the later part of the time period. Much of it was due to the closure or abandonment of businesses in and around the area. Some of the lakes nearby were impacted by land runoff from these sites. Warnings were posted about not eating the fish caught from these lakes. Fortunately, our well was not impacted by it. Michigan is number...

In “2022 Overpayment to Medicare Advantage? Somewhere between 22% and 35%,” Angry Bear, we featured Kip Sullivan’s article, “Medicare Advantage is a money grab by big insurers,” Minnesota Reformer. Besides his own words on the topic, he also used data from MA Overpayment Report, Physicians for a National Health Plan report. Joel led me to this article which I am going to tackle again MA Overpayment Report (pnhp.org) in greater detail and brokn...

Producer prices, “sticky” consumer prices – basically, everything except shelter show nearly complete abatement of inflation  – by New Deal democrat The producer price index released this morning for November is yet further confirmation that inflation ex-shelter is simply not in the pipeline. Both total and core PPI were unchanged for the month. Both commodities (blue) and finished goods (red) declined by another -0.5%, as shown in the below...

After doing some quick scanning of articles on the topic of Medicare Advantage plan disenrollment, I found many leave Medicare Advantage because of complex healthcare conditions. Either a change in health leading to such or an inability to get the care they need. Medicare Advantage plans notoriously deny care as a method to delay care and gain greater profitability. There is more to my explanation than what I have said. Medicare Advantage...

To get to SCOTUS first and decide whether trump has immunity from any and all criminal prosecution. This has been the heart of trump’s attorney filings and to delay. In the Southern Florida Federal District, we can see this emerging with a judge who appears to be promoting delays. The manner of which is similar in getting him to the 2024 election where once elected (if such can be) he can claim immunity to crimes committed. Then there is SCOTUS...

Eugenics is the practice of arranging reproduction within a human population to increase the occurrence of heritable characteristics regarded as desirable. Setting aside who gets to decide which human traits are desirable and undesirable, we simply don’t know enough about the genetic basis for things like industriousness, fidelity, thrift, honesty and countless other human behaviors to pursue a selective breeding program to enhance the frequency of...

If the throughput of product remains the same or increases, why wouldn’t a 4-day labor week be allowed? If more output is required, another shift can be started on the fifth day. Tom Walker has discussed such utilization of production labor to gain greater productivity. There is no loss of money to the company. Labor is happier with a system allowing more free time off. “Four Days a Week: This Labor Day, Let’s Talk About Laboring Less,”...