The Angry Bear

Click on the link and scroll down to the beginning “Roger Stone Is Sentenced” “Tierney Sneed is at the federal courthouse in DC.” Live Blogging I believe Judge Amy Berman Jackson is getting close to Sentencing Stone. Judge Amy Berman Jackson is back and starts off: “Unsurprisingly, I have a lot to say,” Judge Berman Jackson signals that she is also not going to go with Stone’s proposal for only probation. Judge Amy Berman Jackson has sentenced Trump ally...

I have suggested (here and here) that idealism is leading progressives astray.  Unfortunately, climate policy offers many examples. Consider the Climate Equity Act of 2019.  The CEA was, I believe, the first concrete piece of legislation proposed as part of the Green New Deal.  Unfortunately, it illustrates several of the problems with progressive idealism.  The CEA is moralistic rather than strategic.  It does not take policy analysis seriously; it...

Andrew Sprung writes about the ACA. I read him quite often as his posts are expert analysis of the ACA and healthcare.  Mostly recently this commentary was posted by Andrew on the benefits of getting a Bronze plan as opposed to a Gold plan if facing large out of pocket expenses (premiums + deductibles). “XPOSTFACTOID”   Mostly about the ACA: Obamacare to Trumpcare. Bronze plans are terrible. Bronze plans are often the best choice. In discussion of the ACA...

Bloomberg’s Plan for Reskilling America: The Quid without the Pro Quo The Intercept usefully preports Michael Bloomberg’s proposals for higher education, focusing on plans to upgrade workforce skills along the lines desired by employers.  Here’s the selection they excerpted that covers this, worth reading carefully: There’s a lot here that would be useful to businesses located in the US if they want to take advantage of it: money for vocational degrees...

I had wondered why the Senate (Schumer) had backed off on legislation controlling surprise billing. It turns out there is a House bill also and I am sure they are going back and forth on this. Recently, two bills have emerged in the House and one from the Senate. Medscape, “House Committees Advance Bills to Address Surprise Billing.” Of course if Congress’s butt was on the line, a solution would have been found quickly and enacted in 2020. At the end, see...

by New Deal democrat Weekly Indicators for February 10 – 14 at Seeking Alpha My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha.Several of the coincident indicators that turned positive one week ago turned right back to negative this week. The bifurcation between the producer and consumer sides of the economy continues. As usual, clicking over and reading should be educational for you, and ever so slightly enumerative for me....

by David Zetland (One handed economist) Mark Miodownik’s 2014 book is another in the most-welcome genre of “pop science” — a genre of books that explains scientific ideas in clear and comprehensible prose. Miodownik’s insights into the abundant materials surrounding us (glass, steel, plastic, etc.) really help you grasp the miracles that scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs and geeks have brought to our lives. The paradox is that “stuff” costs us so...

Standing on the shoulders of cranks I use the term “crank” affectionately. The figure below is a valiant effort by Arthur O. Dahlberg to depict the “socio-economic process” as a network of troughs, pipes and valves. Even this elaborate contraption is confined to “the movement of the major social variables.” Dahlberg believed that his chart technique communicated his analysis more effectively than words could. What the chart communicates to me, besides...

At the Munich Security Conference the U.S. and its allies had no idea of how to handle China, a problem of their greed and stupidity. The West is divided, confused. What to do about Huawei? Really, what to do with China? So when Mike Pompeo…proclaimed…”we are winning,” the largely European audience was silent and worried in what sense “we” existed longer. In the meantime, Europe, including the U.K, finds itself in a mincer between the U.S. and China...