The Angry Bear

Divide and Rule There was a time, one I can remember from when I was growing up (the 1950s and 60s), when being a liberal meant you wanted certain rights and benefits for everyone, at least ostensibly.  We had Social Security because everyone should have a basic pension when they retire, and all disabled people need to be cared for.  Freedom of speech was for everyone, even those horrible Nazis in Skokie.  Liberals wanted national health insurance so...

Paying for Health Care Over Time Simon Wren Lewis illustrates the long-run government budget constraint with this tale: There are many reasons why, outside of a recession, deficits that, if sustained, would steadily increase the debt to GDP ratio may be bad for the economy, but let me give the most obvious here. For a given level of government spending, interest on debt has to come out of taxes. The higher the debt, the higher the taxes. That is a...

Four biographies for President’s Day In the past several years, I have read four biographies of overlooked or more controversial Presidents. On this President’s Day, I thought I would briefly discuss each in order of how well I thought they covered their topic. I. “The Man Who Saved the Union: Ulysses Grant in War and Peace,” by H.W. Brands. This is one of two recent biographies that have comprehensively rehabilitated Grant, who previously was...

How Pharma Influences Legislation They Do Not Like From 2006 to 2015, pharmaceutical companies spent $880 million in lobbying state and federal legislatures and contributing to campaigns to prevent laws restricting Opioid prescriptions. Their lobbying expenditures has outstripped those advocating for greater controls on prescriptions by 200 times giving them greater influence at the state level. In 2015, 227 million prescriptions were written for opioids...

Shorting China I just saw “The China Hustle” as part of the Portland International Film Festival.  It’s a very (very) slick documentary about the listing of fraudulent Chinese companies on US exchanges during the post-financial crisis era.  The companies were mostly real, but their financial data were fictitious, although given the stamp of approval by the SEC, investment banks, specialty law firms and the big four accounting firms.  The movie might be...

I don’t think this is worth your time, but when I post only at rjwaldmann.blogspot.com Dan pulls the post over here so I might as well. Like many many (too many) people I am irritated by this article by Blake Hounshell. Hounshell claims to have “doubts about whether Donald Trump colluded with Russia” I have a couple of questions. One is: Which word in “Trump colluded with Russia” didn’t you understand ? The answer is “colluded” which is repeatedly...

I am very glad I read Alex Tabbarok’s review of “ENLIGHTENMENT 2.0: Restoring Sanity to Our Politics, Our Economy, and Our Lives,” by Joseph Heath. Tabbarok is a leading ultra pro market libertarian and “Joseph Heath is a Canadian philosopher who is unusually conversant with economics and also unusually capable of writing sparkling prose for a popular audience. ” I have some thoughts. I advise the reader to click the link, and recklessly attempt a...

A Critical Review of Jeffrey Miron’s Call to Slash Entitlements I accused John Cochrane of incoherent babbling on the Federal deficit issue noting his update where he flip flopped: He went from fiscal policy being sober to we are in dire straights just like that! Oh my the sky is falling. We have to take away those Social Security benefits that my generation have been paying into for 35 years. We cannot afford Federal health care spending. After all...

Via Naked Capitalism and published orinially at Grist  Polar Ice Is Lost at Sea: Our planet reached another miserable milestone earlier this week: Sea ice fell to its lowest level since human civilization began more than 12,000 years ago. That worrying development is just the latest sign that rising temperatures are inflicting lasting changes on the coldest corners of the globe. The new record low comes as the planet’s climate system shifts further from...