The Angry Bear

What Bill Barr has said about Donald Trump: In May 2023, when asked whether Trump is fit to be president at a City Club of Cleveland event in Ohio, he responded: “If you believe in his policies, what he’s advertising is his policies, he’s the last person who could actually execute them and achieve them. He does not have the discipline, he does not have the ability for strategic thinking and linear thinking or setting priorities or how to get...

Israel is on a dangerously self-destructive course.  The brutality of the Gaza campaign is antagonizing allies and making it difficult for regional players to continue normalizing relations.  The prospects for a durable peace are dimming at the same time that the policy of military supremacy that provided a modicum of security over the past two decades looks increasingly unsustainable.  Netanyahu clearly deserves much of the blame for what is...

Introduction: It appears HHS and CMS are taking action with Medicare Advantage plans and their payments to brokers selling Advantage plans. They allowed Kaiser Family Foundation healthcare to republish a Modern Healthcare article. I am lucky enough to have access to and republished at Angry Bear. According to the article, “insurers increasingly not only pay commissions to brokers and agents but also contract with field marketing organizations...

July 31, 1789, the U.S. Congress passed the last of three acts providing for administering customs tariffs and collecting duties. On the nation’s birthday, the Tariff Act of July 4, 1789, had been passed by Congress followed by the Duties on Tonnage statute on July 20. Mainly, they provided operating revenue for the government. From 1816 they were designed with the additional goal of protecting manufacturing enterprises from low-priced imports....

Should be back Sunday Night. He was pretty ill and I needed to be there to help him along. Bill

 – by New Deal democrat Existing home sales have very limited value in economic forecasting, since they are the trade of an existing product rather than indicating growth or contraction in the creation of a new product. Thus my main focus at present on this data is the extent to which it shows – or not – the rebalancing of the housing market.  That’s because, unlike existing homeowners, house builders can vary square footage, amenities, lot sizes,...

The last decade has seen many initiatives toward clean, green, and low-carbon energy, as well as a global shift toward electric vehicles and automation. Many of these initiatives were enabled rare earth magnets, which is why rare earth magnets are heavily used now and will continue to be used in the future. When my dad retired as a chemical engineer for Martin-Marietta at the age of 62, he started a one-man company based on a patent he was awarded. It...

According to one well-known theory of electoral competition, voters care about policies, and candidates pick policies to maximize their appeal to voters.  This suggests that campaigns will try to appeal to the median voter.  There is obviously something to this model, and this year, as always, it is a safe bet that each side will, at least to an extent, focus on issues that tend to draw in cross-pressured voters.  The Democrats will focus on...

 – by New Deal democrat I’ve written repeatedly in the past few months that I am paying especial attention to the manufacturing and construction sectors for signs of weakness now that the supply chain tailwind for the economy has ended. At the beginning of this month, one show appeared to have dropped, as the ISM report on manufacturing showed contraction for the second month in a row, declining slightly to 48.7, with the more leading new orders...

Less than a week away and the debate between Biden and Trump will occur. Given Biden’s State of the Union Address, I do not envision he will be giving much room to trump. I do believe trump’s main weaponry will be interrupting Biden’s speech so as to confuse the issues amongst people. There is no real way to control trump so as to conduct a civil exchange. Economist Robert Reich has a pretty good idea of what to do. I hope Biden’s speechwriters...