The Angry Bear

I subscribe to Prof. Heather’s “Letters” site. Sometimes I will comment there in my usual style of discussion and providing information. Yesterday’s commentary is about SCOTUS and its drift away from neutrality in making its ever-lasting decisions. This is not about whether SCOTUS is a conservative or liberal court. Many of the previous courts have been conservative in their decisions. This SCOTUS has taken a stance of declaring some are immune to...

The second part of my book proposal is a chapter outline and summary. I will be doing that on the installment plan, one chapter at a time. Below is a table of contents: 2.0 Marx’s Fetters and the Realm of Freedom: a remedial reading – part 2.0 – Angry Bear 2.1 Ambivalence – Angry Bear 2.2 Der Gefesselte Marx – Angry Bear 2.3 Inversion – Angry Bear 2.4 Alienated labour and disposable time – Angry Bear 2.5 Pauperism and “minus-labour”...

Why You Might Be Responsible For Paying Your Parents’ Medical Debts, by Kelly Phillips Forbes In her five years as a Democratic member of Pennsylvania’s State House, Kristine Howard has fought for gun control, abortion rights, environmental protections and greater funding for public education. But this year, after the death of a colleague, Anthony M. DeLuca Sr., she took up his decade-long crusade to change an obscure state law under the...

Book proposal: Marx’s Fetters and the Realm of Freedom: a remedial reading — part 2.0 The second part of my book proposal is a chapter outline and summary. I will be doing that on the installment plan, one chapter at a time. Below is a table of contents: Fetters/Der Gefesselte Marx Ambivalence Inversion Alienated labour and disposable time Pauperism and “minus-labour” From sufficiency to planned obsolescence… and back? The...

 I have my usual thoughts about inflation. People confuse levels and changes. I think this is a fundamental cognitive illusion. I think perceived inflation and the perceived effect of inflation on real incomes are based on an impressive pair of errors. 1) people estimate inflation from the price level comparing current prices to prices they remember and consider reasonable. As noted by Krugman and Nate Silver, this is not necessarily an error. It...

Weekly Indicators for July 22 – 26 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The high frequency data, like the personal income and spending report, continue to show a strong consumer. Some of the long term negatives have also gotten “less bad” as well. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment as to the data, and reward me a little bit for organizing it...

A follow-up to the much longer report on Insulin (test on this later) and how PBMs impact pricing on other drugs. “Insulin A Drug Pricing Analysis,” Angry Bear. “Drug manufacturers alone set and raise drug prices, and PBMs are holding drug companies accountable by negotiating the lowest possible cost for drugs, including insulins, on behalf of patients.“ According to 46brooklyn, this is an overly simplistic view on drug pricing. It should be...

Another add-on from yesterday as to why people should take precautionary actions when confronted with a pandemic such as Covid-19, the flu, or other contagions. There was much resistance to taking precautionary measures under the guise of a freedom to do what they wish to do mentality. Thousands of people paid with their lives after contracting Covid-19. Many of them decided they did not need to take any precautionary actions. Masks, social...

Ever since I graduated high school, I’ve been associated with one or another research university, either as a student, a postdoc or a faculty. And during nearly all of that time, I was engaged in some form of research.William Rouse wrote a book in 2016 entitled “Universities as Complex Enterprises: How Academia Works, Why it Works These Ways, and Where the University Enterprise is Headed.” He updated and summarized his research in a paper published...

The most economically consequential event of the past decade was the COVID pandemic. It saw countless heroic actions that will be forever unrecognized. Among those who were recognized were Katalin Kariko and Drew Weissman, who shared the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the development of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA vaccines. A more controversial figure during that period was Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the NIH Institute of Allergy and...