The Angry Bear

Joe Manchin’s Daughter Helped Shutter a Union Drug Plant, theintercept.com, Daniel Boguslaw Also taken from “Can You Patent the Sun?” – Angry Bear, What About Drug Costs? The story of EpiPen is a good example of out-of-control pricing. In 2007 Mylan acquired the EpiPen brand from Pfizer. The acquisition did not include the Pfizer subsidiary manufacturing EpiPen. However, Mylan controlled the distribution. There is no story about out of...

July jobs report: in which an absolute positive blowout make me happily wrong; all pandemic job losses now recovered  –  by New Deal democrat As I wrote earlier this week, the short leading indicators for both jobs (real retail sales) and the unemployment rate (initial jobless claims) have each signaled that we should expect weaker monthly employment reports, with both fewer new jobs and a higher unemployment rate. I have been noting this ever...

Tags: Open Thread Aug 5. 2022

One person (Sinema) appears to want to hold the latest attempt to pass some form of the America Rescue bill hostage. A spokesperson for Sinema did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Without her support, Senate Democrats can’t advance the package in the 50-50 Senate over GOP resistance. The party is employing a tactic known as budget reconciliation to avoid a GOP filibuster and pass the bill along party lines.Eliminating carried...

Jobless claims continue their relentless climb  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 6,000 to 260,000 last week. More importantly, the 4 week average, which has been rising relentlessly, rose another 6,000 as well to 254,750, an 8 month high.  Continuing claims also rose 48,000 to 1,417,000, the highest since April: Initial claims have usually risen by 15% or more over its low, and turned higher YoY before a recession has...

Post written by Infidel753 as copied from his blog of the same name. The topic? Munchkin blue Kansas. Ding, dong….. Infidel753 Traditionally, Kansas has been as ruby-red as the slippers sported by its most iconic fictional inhabitant — but the state is looking a little more Munchkin-blue right now, with its voters dropping a house on an effort to facilitate banning abortion. At issue, ultimately, was a 2019 ruling by the state supreme...

This showed up in my In Box today. Andrew Sprung at xpostfactoid is reporting on the impact of the American Rescue Plan impact healthcare. “U.S. uninsured rate hits an all-time low; Biden’s HHS takes a victory lap, ” xpostfactoid by Andrew Sprung The low rate is because of Biden and Dem’s American Rescue Plan which “enhanced Marketplace subsidies, the continuous enrollment provision in Medicaid, several recent state Medicaid expansions, and...

Coronavirus dashboard for August 3: is this what endemicity looks like?  – by New Deal democrat Confirmed cases nationwide (dotted line below) declined to 121,700, still within their recent 120-130,000 range. Deaths (solid line) are also steady at 431, within their recent 400-450 range as well: Hospitalizations have plateaued in the past 10 days reported in the 45-47,000 range, and as of July 30 were 46,100. A commenter at Seeking Alpha who...

JOLTS report for June amplifies likelihood of substantial downturn in job growth, upturn in unemployment Before we get to the JOLTS report for June, which was released this morning, I wanted to make a point about the overall trend in employment. Because, the two best short leading indicators for employment and unemployment are both pointing South. First, as I have written dozens of times over the past 10+ years, consumption leads employment,...

August 2, 2022, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Today, voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to their state constitution that would have stripped it of protections for abortion rights. With 86% of the vote in, 62% of voters supported abortion protections; 37% wanted them gone. That spread is astonishing. Kansas voters had backed Trump in 2020; Republicans had arranged for the referendum to fall on the day of...