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The Angry Bear

Two basic problems of a declining population in a Country

From the NYT opinion pages comes Paul Krugman’s description of the two basic problems of a declining population in a country, Dr. Krugman ues China as an example. China’s population declined last year, for the first time since the mass deaths associated with Mao Zedong’s disastrous Great Leap Forward in the 1960s. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that China has announced that its population declined. Many observers are skeptical about...

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Tomorrow, January 22, is the fiftieth anniversary of the Right to Decide

A bit of history as reviewed on a “woman’s right to decide,” by Professor Heather, “Letters from an American.” Tomorrow marks the fiftieth anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision. On January 22, 1973, the Supreme Court decided that for the first trimester of a pregnancy, “the attending physician, in consultation with his patient, is free to determine, without regulation by the State, that, in his medical judgment, the patient’s pregnancy...

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Whatever happened to MOOCs?

10-15 years ago, Massive Online Open Courses (MOOCs) were a higher education fad. Universities could dispense with physical (lecture halls, heating, cooling, cleaning, security) and administrative (room scheduling) costs and just teach students online. During this period, I was associate dean for research and the Dean of our medical school brought up the suggestion that we could replace our first year medical school curriculum with MOOCs. Never mind...

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Existing home sales and prices decline; plus, a closer look at multi-unit housing construction

Existing home sales and prices decline; plus, a closer look at multi-unit housing construction  – by New Deal democrat I will keep my comments on December existing home sales and prices brief. That’s because, even though they make up about 90% of the total market, they have much less economic impact than new home construction. They are best used to confirm trends; in this case, that housing sales have continued to decline, and prices (which...

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Saying No to Insurance Company Medication Switches

I can not say I have been exposed to any of this switcheroo as my meds are older technology. We are also on regular Medicare and not Medicare Advantage. I have a larger say with the former. Part D works mostly except the pharmacies in my area are less helpful than they were in Michigan. And these drugs do seem to work to my needs for now. Doctor Pelzman does have a major point. The insurance companies, PBMs, distributors (McKesson, etc.) have...

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The actual Big News is the housing report being – positive

The actual Big News in this morning’s housing report was – positive  – by New Deal democrat For the second month in a row, the biggest news in the housing report was not in the headlines.  Most of what you are going to read is about how bad housing permits and starts were, and that they are recessionary. And it’s true. In particular, the most leading and least noisy housing metric of all is single family permits, and they declined another...

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Trump and the debt ceiling

According to Politico, Trump is against cutting Social Security and Medicare: Former President Donald Trump issued a warning to Republican lawmakers on Friday: Don’t lay a finger on entitlement programs as part of the debt ceiling showdown with the White House. “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security,” Trump said in a video message. . . . Nevertheless, in issuing his...

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January Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate

Charles Gaba is doing another update on Covid death rates taking into consideration Partisanship and vaccination rate. At the bottom I include his last update if you wanted to compare commentary. “January Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate (including BIVALENT BOOSTER data),” ACA Signups, Charles Gaba (sigh) Last month I posted what I assumed would be my final update of the red/blue and vaccination-level COVID...

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Jobless claims continue their string of good news

Jobless claims continue their string of good news  – by New Deal democrat If yesterday’s economic data was bad, this morning’s was considerably better (I’ll post on housing construction later). Initial jobless claims declined 15,000 to 195,000, tied for their best number in almost 8 months. The 4 week moving average declined 6,500 to 206,000, the best number in over 6 months. Continuing claims, one week earlier, did increase by 17,000 to...

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And the King of Coincident Indicators rolls over

And the King of Coincident Indicators rolls over  – by New Deal democrat This morning’s second big – and big negative – report was for industrial production, the King of Coincident Indicators (I call it so because historically, it more often than not marks the exact month +/-1 that a recession begins or ends). In December industrial production declined -0.7%, and manufacturing production declined -1.3%. Even worse, both were revised down by...

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