The Angry Bear

I had thought these types of treatment had gone by the wayside in treatment during the last year of life. According to an Medscape article they have not. “‘Physicians should carefully consider whether the prescribed drugs are likely to achieve their benefit within the patient’s remaining lifetime,’ the authors concluded. The study included 151,201 patients ages 65 years and older who died in Sweden at a mean age of 81.3 years from 2007 to 2013. ‘The use...

Thinking About Generations Three weeks ago my wife and our daughter and I were in Moscow to celebrate her mother’s 90th birthday (which was on March 10).  Somehow when I woke up today it occurred to me that a man born on the same day could have joined the Soviet army and participated in the final push into Berlin for the defeat of Hitler.  Likewise in the US a man born on the day could probably have gotten into the US military and participated in the...

Along with fourth quarter  GDP, corporate profits for the the fourth quarter was also reported.  Profits growth was either quite strong or very weak depending on how you looked at them.  On a year over year basis, after tax profits growth was 11% and appeared to be accelerating. However, on a quarter to quarter basis after tax profits actually fell -6.73% (SAAR) in the fourth quarter  and that is after a third quarter annual growth rate of only ...

On March 15 a gunman opened fire on worshipers in two Christchurch mosques, killing 50 and wounding around the same number. Survivors of gunshot wounds often have traumatic injuries that require multiple surgeries and leave them severely disabled for life. Before embarking on his rampage, the alleged gunman broadcast over the internet a “manifesto” outlining the motive for his deed. In his manifesto, the alleged perpetrator claimed to have had “brief...

No, the Meuller report ***DID NOT*** “find no collusion!” This past week I nearly became apoplectic about he malfeasance of much of the press and the punditry reporting of Barr’s 6 paragraph substantive “summary” (3 paragraphs each as to “collusion” and “obstruction of justice”) of Mueller’s roughly 300 page report. As an initial matter, because Mueller’s grand jury is continuing to meet, and there are still subpoenas and witnesses outstanding, it is...

Real personal income and spending sag Along with jobs and wages, household and personal income and spending are my main focus on how average Americans are doing in the economy. We’ll get the next jobs report a week from now, but today we got – almost updated to the present – January personal income and February personal spending. First of all, in my rubric of long leading, short leading, and coincident indicators, both of these are coincident. They tend...

Spoiler: It isn’t working. Charles Gaba at ACA Signups had this up. In an excellent scoop by Dan Diamond and Adam Cancryn this morning, Politico reports that CMS Administrator Seema Verma, the woman in charge of Medicare and Medicaid who takes great joy in trashing Medicare and Medicaid has spent millions of dollars on partisan consulting firms to boost her own image. The Trump appointee who oversees Medicare, Medicaid and Obamacare quietly directed...

The terrorist mass murder in Christchurch, New Zealand two weeks ago has sent me back to my archives to retrieve my documentation of Anders Breivik’s extensive plagiarism of the writings of William S. Lind, et al. Did I say “extensive” plagiarism? Breivik copied and pasted the whole 19,000 word pamphlet, making minor revisions here and there and deleting around 4,000 words that dealt with more arcane academic topics, such as Derridean deconstruction....

The last long leading indicator, corporate profits, declined in Q4 2018 Three months after the quarter ended, corporate profits for Q4 of 2018 were reported this morning, and they were down slightly (-0.1%). Here’s the quote from the BEA: Corporate profits deflated by unit labor costs are a long leading indicator. Since these costs were already reported at +1.6% q/q, that means that adjusted corporate profits were down about the same percentage....