The Angry Bear

Forecast of commercial healthcare costs to come in 2025 (MedCity report), what has occurred in the past, and what is expected beyond 2025. Meanwhile Congress is twiddling their thumbs arguing amongst themselves over what is more important to their existence . . . constituents or big business. Interesting too, how the Sadlers are getting themselves off the hook for the Opioid epidemic. They didn’t know? New Survey, employers’ project trending...

Follow the stories below about Albertsons and Kroger give away of following the money . . . In 2022; Albertsons is set to give away a third of its value to its private equity owner Cerberus and to other investors. The publicly traded supermarket chain Albertsons will pay a $4 billion special dividend in early November. That will occur if the SEC or other regulators do not intervene in the merger. The give-away dividend equals about a third...

 – by New Deal democrat Every month I write about the Jobs Report. But while it is timely, it is only an estimate. There is an actual census of over 95% of all employers that also gets reported, called the QCEW, and it is the “gold standard” of actual jobs growth (or loss). Its two drawbacks are that it is not seasonally adjusted, and it is reported almost 6 months after the end of the quarter it updates. Which is a lengthy introduction to...

A dangerous maneuver by Ukraine, unless Putin and Russia are willing to capitulate after years of fighting. In any case and over time, Zelensky’s life will be in danger. Putin will be hunting for an opportunity to remove this antagonist. FP This Week – Ukraine Invades Russia On Aug. 6, Ukraine surprised the world with an incursion into the Russian region of Kursk. This upended a growing consensus in Washington and elsewhere that the conflict...

Brief discussion by an intelligent basketball legend on hot weather caused by pollution and the resulting deaths from it. “Heat aggravated by carbon pollution killed 50,000 in Europe last year – study,” The Guardian, as discussed by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar Summary: Hot weather inflamed by carbon pollution killed nearly 50,000 people in Europe last year, with the continent warming at a much faster rate than other parts of the world, research has...

Believe it or not, there are still some folks who think climate change is a hoax. How many are financially invested in that belief, I don’t know. I do know that folks who are currently in the business of making money in the insurance industry *do* believe that climate change is real. They’re no longer willing to insure residential and commercial buildings in risky areas. This threatens to trigger an insurance crisis with major economic consequences in...

r.j. sigmund on Covid a few days ago i read an article on a university website that Covid activity was ‘showing signs of slowing’, so that’s what i expected to find when i checked the data this morning…”growing less rapidly” might have been a more descriptive assessment… among the CDC’s “early indicators“, “test positivity”, or the percentage of tests for Covid that were positive, rose to 18.1% during the week ending August 10th, up from 17.6%...

How restrictive are “real” interest rates?  – by New Deal democrat This post is inspired by a Xtweet from Paul Krugman this morning, in which he pointed out that if we measured inflation the same way it is done in Europe, the Yoy% change would be only 1.7%. That got me wondering, since the primary difference is how shelter inflation is measured, just how restrictive is current Fed policy across a number of the most important inflation...

A bit of The Atlantic’s Anne Lowrey on high prices and increasing prices. The article says there are few or great tools a president has at their disposable. I beg to differ on Annie’s comment. One of those tools a President Kamala has is take the issue to the citizenry making the case many of the high prices do not need to be. They are artificially high because industry can control supply which can drive prices up. This is no surprise the nation...

According to Nate DiCamillo at Quartz, “September is shaping up to be another good month for consumer sentiment.” AB: I believe there are other aspects which would make the citizenry even feel better then decreasing gasoline prices. The economy is getting there, just not fast enough for many, and people show their doubts. Gasoline pricing dropping is short term. Inevitably, oil and gasoline prices will continue to increase in pricing and faster...