The Angry Bear

 – by New Deal democrat The Senior Loan Officer Survey is a long leading indicator, telling us about credit conditions that typically turn worse a year or more before the economy turns down, and improve just at the economy is ready to turn up. The big drawback of this series is that the information is only reported Quarterly, and with a one a one month lag. As I indicated in my introductory note yesterday, data for Q1 was released yesterday....

Inflation Is Scrambling Americans’ Perceptions of Middle-Class Life, businessinsider.com, Jennifer Sor Yes, we have inflation. It is a given. Inflation is scrambling the lives of middle-class Americans. Income is not keeping up with the costs of maintaining a Middle-Class Life. I have sat here in AZ watching this play out in the nation. In many cases we are fighting a supply chain shortage which is entirely controllable in the US. Similar happened...

Kevin Drum doesn’t believe Life is so bad. Kevin poses a number of reasons why things are actually pretty good. Think about it. We weathered a pandemic. For the first time government stepped in biggly and well beyond what was done in 2008 for people. Biden insured people who had no healthcare insurance pre-pandemic, provided subsidies for people while we stayed home, added additional subsidies for children, permanently expanded subsidies for...

Judge Merchan appears to be boxed in.  On the one hand, fining Trump $1,000 for violating the gag order is obviously not going to be effective.  On the other hand, sending Trump to jail would make him a martyr to some, and may not even be effective, since Trump would appeal any order sending him to the hoosegow.  What’s a trial judge to do? Well, one possibility is to ban Trump from Truth Social (or from social media generally).  Sure, Trump could...

Since many AB readers are either retired or about to be:“Looking solely at the trust fund that covers retirement and survivor benefits, Social Security will only be able to afford scheduled payments in full until 2033, roughly the same projection as last year. At that time, the fund’s reserves will be depleted, and continuing income will only cover 79% of benefits owed.”*snip*“As for Medicare, its hospital insurance trust fund, known as Medicare Part...

I believe Angry Bear can present this excellent article on how the Supreme Court is evolving its interpretation of the Public Health. I am using it as informational and instructional to Angry Bear readers. A brief analysis of the SCOTUS philosophy on Public Health and their impact on the government and its legislation. It is brief enough and stated in nontechnical terms allowing a layman to pickup on it rather easily. The Public Good on the Docket...

 – by New Deal democrat First, a brief programming note. This week is particularly sparse in the new economic data department. The Senior Loan Officer Survey will be reported this afternoon, and on Thursday as usual we get jobless claims. Aside from that, nada. So I might take a day or two off. But I want to spend some time looking more closely at last Friday’s jobs report(s). I use the plural, because last Friday there really were two very...

Executive Summary portion of the Medicare Payment Policy Report to Congress I have only had time to wade through the Executive Summary portion of the MedPac Report to Congress on FFS and MA Medicare plans. If the Executive Summary has any meaning, we will see some changes in how MA plans administer pricing of services to Medicare patients. The difference between MA and FFS Medicare is extraordinary which you will see in my commentary. This is...

Western “Values” … | Homeless on the High Desert Dog named Cricket got a raw deal from an owner who could not train it, so took the easy way out. And she wants to be in the White House? ~~~~~~~~ Donna asked me about this the other day and it doesn’t seem to be going away First, let’s establish a couple of things: I am from Way Out West, from Eureka! California to Eureka! Montana; grew up in a logging, lumber and ranching town and my first...

A comment on an AB thread recently reminded me that I needed to update my understanding of the economics of long-distance travel by plane vs car:“In 1970, flying was twice as energy intensive as driving, but that has reversed. In 2012, the most recent year counted, driving one person one mile took 4,211 BTUs, while flying required just 2,033.“The numbers for driving are based on the average fuel economy of all light-duty vehicles (that’s passenger...