The Angry Bear

Much of this is the result of commercial healthcare gaming the system with pricing. Medicare Advantage can not compete head-to-head with Traditional Medicare much less the VA. VA sent me to Barrows (Arizona) for an issue with my back and right leg. I was going numb and it was painful to walk. So to make up for just giving me epidural shots in my spine (surgeon’s suggestions), they decide to work on my blood pressure, cholesterol, and weight. They...

Farming is a risky business. Always has been. A federal program to keep farmers in business during droughts seems like a good idea to me. Sadly, it’s also a target for fraud:“On a normal day, the promising storms produced snow or rain that would fall onto a system of official weather stations at airstrips or town halls, into heated “tipping buckets.” When the teeter-totter buckets filled with a thimbleful of water, the seesaw tilted, dropping one...

Sailing Alone by Richard J. King Reviewed by one-handed economist David Zetland I read this 2023 book by Richard J. King on the recommendation of LS. It’s all about those sailors who take to the sea alone, with only wind (or muscle power). It’s about the mental and physical challenges, and how technology and society have added or (mostly) subtracted from them. I thought the book was insightful. It definitely convinced me that sailing...

 – by New Deal democrat There’s no big economic news today or tomorrow, so let’s take a more detailed look at the leading indicators from Friday’s jobs report. It turns out, the news wasn’t nearly as bad as the headline employment number. Let’s start with the negative stuff. The simple story is, manufacturing is in a funk. Employment in manufacturing declined -24,000, which is tied for a two-year low. Meanwhile, trucking employment declined...

Suppose that you wake up tomorrow and discover that a sadistic alien has turned you into an economist.  You are just getting over your shock at your new predicament (“How will I make friends?  Will anyone ever trust me again?  At least I’m not a lawyer.”) when Kamala Harris, responding to voter concerns about inflation, makes a vague statement in favor of government restrictions on the price of groceries.  It just so happens that you have a...

I found this report on Health Affairs a day or so ago. It was long and I spent the last two days condensing it so it could be presented and read on Angry Bear. Briefly, the author(s) detailed four main prices which consist of a List Price, an Out-of-Pocket Price, Insurer’s responsibility price, and the Negotiated price once all rebates are accounted. Exhibit 1 is a quicky study to understand how the authors arrived at the breakdown. Also detailed is...

By Garry George Audubon The goal of conservation is to protect biodiversity and prevent species from disappearing. We often associate this work with the maintenance of natural areas, but Audubon’s science shows that bird populations are feeling impacts of climate change even in protected places like wildlife refuges. As just one example, Burrowing Owls are projected to lose 14% of their current range if the average global temperature increases...

I did some rewriting on this particular commentary and added two charts from another commentary (at the bottom). The point being to give graphical depiction of the impact of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and who it benefited the most. You can see (for whatever reason) why the Republican Party is pushing for this and taking it from Medicaid. You can also wonder why less wealthy Republicans making far less than the major beneficiaries are not up in...

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. In the wake of yesterday’s weak jobs report, bond yields and mortgage rates declined to 12 months+ lows, commodities declined across the board, stocks sold off sharply, and the 10 years to 2-year Treasury spread un-inverted. That’s bad news and good news. It’s bad news because it indicates a belief that the economy has weakened substantially, but good news because...

Interesting and brief piece by Dean Baker of CEPR in relation to price gouging. There continues to be a debate about the extent to which “price-gouging” or “greedflation” has been responsible for the rise in prices since the pandemic. We can debate the extent to which companies were able to take advantage of monopoly power during the pandemic. Whatever the cause, it is clear the profit share of corporate income has risen from before the pandemic...