The Angry Bear

The Veterans Community Care Program promised to give vets speedier access to high quality care. Instead, its care is of lower quality, takes longer and its cost is soaring. Suzanne Gordon and Steve Early focus on helping veterans secure healthcare.  I have talked with Steve previously. Russell Lemle is a Senior Policy Analyst for the Veterans Healthcare Policy Institute.  VA’s Private Health Plan Faces Huge Cost Overruns, Washington...

Who do you work for? The one-handed economist, David Zetland Economists assume that people work for themselves first, i.e., accepting payment (extrinsic motivation) to do something they would not do if they were not paid. But that “model” ignores the role of intrinsic motivation (we do what we like) which plays a role — large or small — in determining where we work, but also how much we are willing to accept to do the work (more intrinsic...

Retail sales faceplant; industrial production continues 16-month streak of weakness – by New Deal democrat Let’s take a look at two the big short leading and coincident indicators that were reported yesterday, respectively real retail sales and inducatrial production. Retail sales can be volatile monthly, and about once in a typical year they either faceplant or unexpectedly soar. Yesterday we got the facelpalnt. Retail sales declined...

Full article at the link. Last night Prof: Heather Cox-Richardson reporting in “Letters from an American” a comment made by Tucker Carlson to Egyptian journalist Emad El Din Adeeb. Carlson emphasized an equivalency of American leaders to Russia’s Putin. My Letters Take . . . “Every leader kills people . . . Some kill more than others. Leadership requires killing people.”     I can not think of any US president openly assassinating a...

I took the story from a NBC News article written by Kevin Collier, “Parents struggle after Lurie Children’s Hospital cyberattack.” Quelle Surprise as one blogger used to say from time to time. What else is new? This was bound to happen. The issue(s) as I see it, is/are what is the backup(s) to the system? The Story Deborah Land said the outage has caused an infuriating runaround. Her daughter needs bloodwork completed for an appointment...

A pretty damning report detailing Louis DeJoy’s program’s failure to replicate mail delivery or improve mail delivery which was the goal. The mail slows down, again, Save The Post Office, Steve Hutkins As you have probably noticed from personal experience and reading the news, the Postal Service is having a difficult time delivering on time. Mail and packages are delayed for days, even weeks, sometimes never arriving at all. For its part,...

Housing construction essentially stable in January  – by New Deal democrat I’m on the road, so I need to keep this brief, but fortunately I can give you the essence of this most important housing report with little difficulty. Mortgage rates have declined about 1% from their peak during the autumn, and are about equal to where they were one year ago: As a result, we should expect some improvement in the housing market from its worst...

Just before Christmas 2023, I posted a partial of a Thom Hartmann commentary (reader: Jim Han suggestion), a radio personality, is liberal or progressive in his beliefs, and has other sides of politics, etc. on his radio broadcasts. Yes, he makes money by having his views and discussing other views on his show. I am starting to see others take up the issues at the Mexico-US border. But not in the way, I would hope they would take it up. These are...

Paranoia, passivity, and keeping reality at bay, INFIDEL753 Blog, Infidel753 This post is about psychology, not politics.  It may not look that way at first, but bear with me.] Many on the left feel a persistent anxiety about the danger of large-scale right-wing political violence.  Much of the right-wing population is heavily armed (though lately many urban liberals have been buying guns too, due to the ongoing menace of violent crime in...

Taken from MSN’s reprint of a Washington Post article. How can you not get excited about this? As a basketball small forward and guard, a thunker when trying to dunk the ball. I think this is exciting. How can you not like this? Iowa’s senior guard entered the night with 3,520 points, seven shy of Plum’s record. Caitlin Clark wasted no time, making a right-handed layup on the Hawkeyes’ first possession and a three-pointer on their second position...