The Angry Bear

Initial jobless claims: moving closer to a red flag warning  – by New Deal democrat Initial claims for jobless benefits rose 12,000 last week to 248,000. The 4 week average declined -3,500 to 253,250. With a one week lag, continued claims declined -13,000 to 1.20 million: More importantly for forecasting purposes, initial claims are up 17.1% YoY. The more important 4 week average is up 18.1%, and continuing claims are up 27.0%: This is...

The Medicare Advantage Quality Bonus Program, Urban Institute, Laura Skopec and Robert A. Berenson The following is an introduction and a portion of a very readable report to which the link can be found at the end of this introduction. The findings are similar as to what Kip Sullivan and others have been reporting all along. To which I have reported and confirmed on Angry Bear on numerous occasions. The one liner finding to this being, the Quality...

A comment taken from Ken Melvin’s commentary “The Coup.” Ken Melvin discussing with JackD. Yeah. Sen, Whitehouse makes this distinction: In effect, there are three Federalist Societies. The first (Federal Society) one most lawyers know from law school. It is, for the most part, a debating society, made up of like-minded aspiring lawyers drawn to conservative ideas and judicial doctrine. They organize seminars and invite academics, and...

The US Constitution was their best effort to answer the question, “How should it be?” Then, they were seeking a new and better way of governance. Now, some two-hundred-forty years later, a latter-day majority of Justices on the US Supreme Court, the one charged with interpreting the Constitution, are saying, “This is how it should be.” The one, asking; the other, dictating. Merely a matter of word order? Hardly. Whereas their focus was on getting the...

An important reason to read history is to gain a perspective on current events. If you watch exclusively mainstream media television, particularly Fox News, you might be forgiven for the belief that things in this country are the worst they have ever been in history. “1877: America’s Year of Living Violently” by Michael Bellisiles is one effective antidote to that impression.The panic of 1873, when a post-Civil War speculative bubble burst, launched...

Can architects and designers make a difference in the climate emergency? Carbon Upfront, Lloyd Alter, One prominent English architect says we should just shut up and draw, we don’t matter much anyway. I am single-minded when teaching sustainable design at Toronto Metropolitan University: it is all about carbon, carbon, carbon, the issue of our time. My students are urban, interior, and fashion designers in The Creative School at TMU....

Coronavirus update: mid year 2023  – by New Deal democrat I haven’t done an update on the state of COVID since March or April. As we are halfway through the year, and just past the July 4 holiday get-togethers that sparked summer waves in the past, let’s take a look. Covid isn’t gone, but it is very much in a lull. Almost all case tracking by governments is gone. But Biobot’s wastewater monitoring, which has been very reliable, continues....

Infidel talks about the costly flops by the movie making behemoth executives and brought to us at our nearby Big Screen theater only to be disappointed and bored whichever comes first. Hopefully, there is good buttered popcorn . . . Infidel753: Cultural dinosaurs and creative exhaustion, Infidel753 Blog It’s no secret that American movies are in the doldrums.  By a recent estimate, all of Disney’s last eight big films flopped, losing a total...

A brief essay for July 4, 2023  – by New Deal democrat Selections from Brutus, the anti-federalist who argued against the Constitution’s institution of the Supreme Court: “When great and extraordinary powers are vested in any man, or body of men, which in their exercise, may operate to the oppression of the people, it is of high importance that powerful checks should be formed to prevent the abuse of it. “[T]hose who are to be vested with...

How does this article fit into Angry Bear’s typical offering? It doesn’t really or it does if you believe it to be an issue of economics, personal economics, and education. An education to be careful how and where your credit cards are used. My rule(s) of thumb. If it takes too long to process a credit, ask questions about there being a problem. If the person leaves the area from where you can watch them transact the purchase, there should be an...