The Angry Bear

Everybody knows that California is a “high-tax” state, right? Well, yes and no. Depends on where you are on the food chain. If your household is the top 1%, then California tax rates are 2nd highest, while Texas and Florida are 43rd and 50th, respectively.OTOH, if your household income is in the second quintile as a % of family income, things change: “California is about average, with a tax rate lower than either Texas or Florida. Texas has the ninth...

Adding where Joel paused . . . Can you reduce your risk of dementia? – Angry Bear, Joel Eissenberg Replacing red meat cuts dementia risk by 20%, CNN, by Sandee LaMotte Dementia risk rose by 14% when people ate about 1 ounce of processed red meat a day — the equivalent of slightly less than two 3-ounce servings a week — compared with people who only ate about three servings a month, a preliminary new study found. The risk for dementia dropped...

Angry Bears New Deal democrat; July jobs report: Establishment survey weak (but still positive), Household survey (even more) recessionary. Last week: “In the past few months, my focus has been on whether jobs gains are most consistent with a “soft landing,” i.e., no further deterioration, or whether deceleration is ongoing. In the last several months I have also pointed out that the Household Survey is probably understating growth because of its...

by Lloyd Alter Carbon Upfront! Over on Linkedin, UK Passivhaus developer Paul Richards complains, “There must be a clear step by step guide for Homeowners and occupiers, people are desperate to improve the efficiency and environment, but are lacking a guide as to what to do first, what are the small steps people can undertake without breaking an already stretched bank? Is there a common sense approach to retrofit?” This is something I...

On 1 July, I retired from my 37-year faculty gig. Among other things, this meant shifting from private insurance to Medicare. I haven’t yet used my Medicare coverage, but my wife, who retired two years ago as a faculty at a different university, has had no difficulties with her transition to Medicare. So far.The Medicare Conversion Factor (the multiplier used to calculate payment rates for each service or procedure) for 2025 will be the lowest since...

A counter argument by Robert Reich about Pres. Joe Bidens 2021 CHIPS Act. Why Did the US give away $52bn to corporations like Intel? by Robert Reich The Guardian Congress will soon put final touches on the Chips Act, which will provide more than $52bn to companies that design and make semiconductor chips. The subsidy is demanded by the biggest chipmakers as a condition for making more chips in America. It’s pure extortion. The...

More on Pharmacy Benefit Managers and their influence on costs In case you forgot who the PBMs are? The FTC said in its interim report, the “increasing vertical integration and concentration enables the six largest PBMs to manage nearly 95 percent of all prescriptions filled in the United States.” Those six are Caremark Rx, LLC; Express Scripts, Inc.; OptumRx, Inc.; Humana Pharmacy Solutions, Inc.; Prime Therapeutics LLC; and MedImpact...

Not sure if he started to cry while the trump supporters were taking him to task. Must be the heat was to great and he was not armed. “Kyle Rittenhouse” reverses course on not endorsing Trump after online pile-on The Guardian Man who killed activists in 2020 questioned Trump’s gun rights bona fides before backing down in face of hate tweets. Acquitted killer Kyle Rittenhouse announced he would not be supporting Donald Trump’s attempt to...

by Dean Baker Center for Economic and Policy Research I’m really wondering after the network ran the second piece in three days blaming a weak economy for the fact that restaurants can’t sustain their inflated pandemic profit margins. The basic story here is that many restaurant chains took advantage of the supply chain crisis to increase their profit margins. To be clear, this means that they raised their prices by more than their costs....

This piece is a review on what is happening in increasing manufacturing capacity for computer, electronic, and electrical manufacturing. Where I am, there is increasing builds of facilities for each of those products. That being around the Phoenix area. One facility they have been working on for two years now and it appears to be near the end. Much of this is automated and probably much Labor. Semiconductor is basically growing wafer, populated the...