The Angry Bear

Over at jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum takes on Paul Krugman over his assertion that small-town America is aggrieved because the working-age men are more likely to be unemployed than their metropolitan counterparts. As usual, Kevin brings the charts and numbers to show that while Krugman isn’t wrong, the differences are small and don’t explain “white rural rage.” Kevin notes that while pay is less in rural areas, the difference is mostly compensated...

The Trump administration and the ACA marketplace: An assessment (Part 1), xpostfactoid, Andrew Sprung. In the wake of Trump’s vow to repeal the ACA if elected, Larry Levitt, EVP of health policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, outlines the former president’s past and purported future healthcare agenda. One of Trump’s biggest political failures as president was his inability to persuade Congress to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA)....

Renewables 2023, Analysis and forecast to 2028. IEA, Paris Executive Summary I did this before with the IEA. Sent the IEA a few emails establishing what Angry Bear could and could not use. Attributing the analysis I have posted here was one of the requirements. With their permission, I can bring to Angry Bear much of what is going on in the globally in the area of energy. They asked that I do not report on oil as companies pay for the reports....

New home sales and YoY prices change little; expect sideways trend to follow similar recent trend in mortgage rates  – by New Deal democrat This week we conclude January’s housing market data with repeat sales prices tomorrow, and new single family home sales, which were reported this morning. Per my usual caveat, while new home sales is that they are the most leading of the housing metrics, they are noisy and heavily revised. Which was the...

Factual story, not quite a year old. and more than likely still, still having relevance. Prior authorizations for care before getting it should not be problematic. Prior authorization should have been far easier. Except some healthcare insurance use delays to discourage patients. Indeed. one would think no more than 24 hours would be needed for authorization. Quick cure to some of the delays would be to publicly publish the amounts of delays and...

Is More Work Better? Think Again? The freedom of free time, branded as unproductive “leisure,” gets no respect. Originally published at Wealth Economics This post is prompted by a recent tweet from the excellent Joey Politano, but it’s not singling out Joey in particular. “We could be working so much more.” It’s hard to come away with any other message. This tweet’s just one example of a lurking, largely unspoken, and quite likely...

I know the first article is readily accessible to read if you have no membership. I believe the other two articles are open reading also. If not let me know. I can access them. Ukraine is waiting for US aid. Prof. Heather looks at how we find ourselves at this point. A point of abandoning of a country willing to fight. February 23, 2024 – Letters from an American– Heather Cox Richardson; Two years ago today, Ukraine president Volodymyr...

“U.S. officials say they believe Hamas has been constrained by the Israeli operations, but that Israel will not be able to achieve, in the foreseeable future, its goal of eliminating the group’s military capability.” also “An Israeli military intelligence official, who spoke on condition of anonymity under military protocol, said that Israel was engaged in a comprehensive mission to unravel Hamas’s military capabilities. “Is it possible...

His honor assumes a fact not in evidence. Ruth Marcus has an important op-ed which cites strong evidence that the party of the president who nominated federal judges helps one predict their opinions. I will fair use the important part. “Now comes an intriguing study by a Harvard Law School professor that buttresses my point: If anything, it suggests we have underestimated the impact of party affiliation on judicial outcomes. Alma Cohen, whose...

The “gold standard” of employment reports suggests that last summer’s job growth was even weaker than we thought  – by New Deal democrat While the monthly jobs report gets all the headlines, the “gold standard” for actual employment gains and losses is the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), which as its name indicates, unlike the payrolls report is not a survey but rather an actual census of about 97% of all employers, via their...