The Angry Bear

Finally, someone of stature is taking a look at private equity acquiring hospital chains, milking their funds, and leaving a shell of what the original hospital was earlier. I am hoping Elizabeth Warren can force the issues with these take overs private equity takeovers. In the end, many communities depending on these hospitals are left without adequate healthcare services. Thy are forced to travel miles to get emergency and other care. I added 4 to...

 – by New Deal democrat This morning’s jobless claims report continued the uptrend we’ve seen for the past month. But it still looks more likely than not that it is mainly unresolved post-pandemic seasonality. We’ll probably get a more definitive answer to that issue in th next several weeks. Initial Jobless claims declined 5,000 for the week to 238,000. The 4 week moving average rose 5,500 to a new 9 month high of 232,750. With the typical one...

Pandemics are bad for economies. Vaccinations are an important bulwark against pandemics. But all viruses and all vaccines are not alike.In the case of the annual flu vaccine, annual vaccination against flu variants can be a problem: antibody-producing memory cells crowd out new antibody-producing cells, and people develop relatively few neutralizing antibodies against the strains in the newer vaccine. Does getting updated COVID boosters interfere...

The latest news? Do not drink.A shot of anything is generally 1.50 fluid ounces, which is 41.7 grams. Whiskey can range in proof, starting at 80 proof. Simple math and using 80 proof whisky (40% alcohol) yields 16.68 grams of alcohol. I am going to guess Bourbon is similar. I got tired of reading the NYT article which is also on Yahoo and printed twice in the same column. I do not have leeway to current NYT articles. This JAMA Network Open study...

It appears upper management is running away with most of the compensation. Adding to this is the lowered taxes resulting from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act which was passed using Reconciliation. The TCJA is due to reverse in 2025. I am sure President Biden will reverse it for the upper 20% at least. ~~~~~~~ NEW YORK (AP) — Compensation packages for S&P CEOs running companies jumped nearly 13% last year. This easily surpasses the gains for...

 – by New Deal democrat I saw a graph within the past few days (which unfortunately I did not make a copy of) indicating Biden’s polling problems are not against Trump per se so much as they are the failure of Biden to consolidate support among young voters, especially voters of color, vs. Trump’s having already consolidated his base support. One reason, is the huge generational divide in how the Israel/Palestine issue is viewed. But the other...

Parking where you should not park with your oversized toy. This picture was also on Reddit. I believe the original pic(s) are from here: “Driver shares photo high-lighting a parking problem with oversized vehicles: ‘These cars are pointless,'” The Cooldown. According to one Planning Commission member in Arizona, sixty percent of the vehicles being purchased are pickup trucks. Most of these vehicles are used for non-work travel. Maybe some...

May 2024 manufacturing report. Manufacturing was up in May after following two months of it being down in April and March. There is belief, manufacturing will be down in June as the FED did not reduce the FED Rate. I also suspect manufacturing will not take off in June. However, I believe it will be no worst then May. The demand is there. In order to meet demand, companies will stay within their budgets to manufacture. Unless there is a price...

This particular graph was pulled from an April 2024 Morning Star article. The source of it being the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It depicts wage growth before during and after the Pandemic. In particular I believe the government did quite well in providing for and protecting its citizens during the pandemic when many people could not work. The stimulus packages may have caused some of the wage growth and inflation. There are other things which are...

Drones are changing warfare. They are cheap and deadly. I am thinking about their use in stopping a marine invasion. The reason is that I am concerned that it is not clear enough to Xi JinPing that an invasion of Taiwan would be a huge error. The problem with anti-ship drones is that they are attacking a target with anti-aircraft defences and one which can survive some explosions. I think this means that a very large number of drones must...