The Angry Bear

The 2020 Presidential election forecast from State polling: a Biden tsunami threatens to swamp the GOP Senate For the past two weeks, I have posted a projection of the Electoral College vote based solely on State rather than national polls (since after all that is how the College operates) that have been reported in the last 30 days. Here’s how it works: – States where the race is closer than 3% are shown as toss-ups. – States where the range is between...

A futile quest, Why “performance” measurement is not working, Minnesota Physician The Independent Medical Business Journal, Kip Sullivan, April 2020 Intro: “Pay for Performance” is not a new catch phrase in the healthcare community, but it is one that has seen a recent spike in interest from the general public and healthcare world alike. The renewed interest is due to the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and initiatives within the Act that require hospitals and...

Frederick Douglass’s oration on the 4th of July (abridged) The middle portion of Douglass’s famous speech, delivered in 1852 to white abolitionists in Rochester, NY, where Douglass lived at the time, and is buried — “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” — is best known. But in the first portion he allowed for the celebration of the principles enunciated by the Founders in the Declaration of Independence: “your fathers, the fathers of this...

June data starts out with a bright spot in manufacturing Earlier this week the last of the regional Fed Districts, Dallas, reported their manufacturing indexes for June. The overall picture has been a strong rebound: Regional Fed New Orders Indexes (*indicates report this week)  Empire State up +41.8 to -0.6 Philly up +42.4 to +16.7 Richmond up +30 to +5 Kansas City  up +32 to +7 *Dallas up +33.5 to +2.9 On a month over month basis, the average is up +36...

Competency by   Ken Melvin What is the first criteria when a Board of Directors goes looking for a new CEO? When the construction firm goes looking for a project manager? Of late, too often, US Politics seems to have a new standard for selecting officeholders. We have been, are, watching this horror of a Pandemic being mismanaged by elected incompetents. Incompetents who might have been promoted to yet higher positions if their incompetence hadn’t been...

The betting markets and statistical models of the 2020 election suggest Trump is either likely or very likely to lose.  I have no reason to doubt this, but it is interesting to look back at the history of his approval ratings. Trump’s approval trended down throughout his first year in office, with low points in the summer (Charlottesville, Obamacare repeal) and winter (highly unpopular corporate tax cut).  He finished the year with approval around 37 or...

The Henry Ford Hospital Group finished its observational study using HCQ, HCQ+AZT, and AZT in the treatment of Covid 19. At 4:30 AM (can’t sleep sometimes), I read it and this is difficult reading while yawning. The stats are within the text of the limited study. I am not going to put them in this brief recital of the study. My version is not all inclusive and I may have missed some issues or facts of importance. I invite you to read it and form your own...

June jobs report: the last hurrah of the wished-for “V-shaped” coronavirus recovery HEADLINES: 4,800,000 million jobs added. This makes up about 22% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. U3 unemployment rate improved 2.2% from 13.3% to 11.1%, compared with the January low of 3.5%. U6 underemployment rate improved 3.2% from 21.2% to 18.0%, compared with the January low of 6.9%. Those on temporary layoff declined 4,778,000 to 10.565 million....

Wildly Off Forecasts? The macroeconomic forecasting business has become quite unhinged in the current situation, with existing models seeming to have their wheels coming off as old relationships simply do not hold and reported data seems unreliable and going in all sorts of directions.  We have already seen this happen regarding forecasts that were made for the May employment numbers, with most forecasters projecting employment declines that would have...