The Angry Bear

In a recent post, libertarian political philosopher Jason Brennan argues that “we should ignore the welfare of people who choose not to vaccinate out of paranoia”.  We owe them nothing.  Brennan reaches this conclusion by analogizing vaccine hesitancy to a heckler’s veto (my bold): The idea of heckler’s veto goes as follows: Take any action, P, which is permissible. Now imagine that a person makes a credible threat to do something wrongful or bad...

The Death of Dick Day I learned a few days ago that Richard (Dick) Hollis Day died about a month ago.  There is no obit yet, so I do not have exact dates of birth or death, but communicating with an old mutual friend who knows his oldest son, apparently he succumbed to dementia and related problems that had him declining over the last several years at his home in Cambria, California.  He was born in 1933, but not sure of exact date, so he was...

April jobs report: well, that was a big miss …. but look at the composition HEADLINES: +266,000 million jobs added: 218,000 private sector plus 48,000 government. The alternate, and more volatile measure in the household report indicated a gain of 328,000 jobs, which factors into the unemployment and underemployment rates below.U3 unemployment rate rose 0.1% to 6.1%, compared with the January 2020 low of 3.5%.U6 underemployment rate declined...

 by New Deal democrat The long leading indicator of credit conditions has just been updated by the Fed The easing or tightening of credit conditions has a good track record as a long leading indicator, giving us information about whether the economy will be expanding or contracting in 12+ months. The Fed just updated its Senior Loan Officer Survey for Q1, which covers both the easing or tightening of credit supply on the one hand, and...

Tags: open thread

Want a Public Option? Not So Fast, Say Health Insurers. Guess Who is Fighting It! Much of this is from an Op-Ed at MedPage Today authored by Wendel Potter. I have added to it as Wendel discusses the impact of insurance as a major influence on healthcare cost. It is one sided and the commentary ignores increased healthcare costs (pharma, hospitals, healthcare supplies, and doctors). I have touched upon both at MedPage Today and here. The...

Unfortunately for himself, the young man was polite and did not school Brian Kilmeade (after his comment) about trump’s inaction in the beginning of the Covid Pandemic causing the delay in returning to school. During the young man’s comments to Brian Kilmeade, you can see the young woman in the lower left quadrant shaking her head in agreement. [embedded content] Maybe this can be categorized as talking back to your elders? The youngsters get...

A couple of months ago I drafted up a post arguing that Trump was becoming yesterday’s news.  He was off Twitter and Facebook, and responsible for a highly unpopular attack on Congress.  Stripped of the powers of the presidency he would be forced to spend his time whining about the election and playing victim.  The insurrection would give Republican officeholders the excuse they needed to distance themselves from Trump.  (I certainly was not alone...

A Recent Correlation Regarding Political “Leadership” And The Coronavirus  The recent correlation I have noticed, with others commenting on it also, is that some of the most prominent nations with the most rapidly rising rates of coronavirus infections are led by somewhat authoritarian leaders who have recently dismissed the threat of it and engaged in policies that may have encouraged its spread.  The most dramatic examples are India, Brazil, and...

Whether it be by legislative intent, or due to some interpretation of the law by a judge or by the supreme court; behind each incidence of police brutality, shooting of an unarmed person, or other unwarranted police behavior in America, lies the question of how is it the law of the land allows law enforcement officers to act with relative impunity? Of course, there is the question of whether the law does indeed allow law enforcement officers to use...