Tag Archives: Hot Topics

January 1, 2024, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox-Richardson On January 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed his name to the Emancipation Proclamation. He said . . . “I never in my life felt more certain that I was doing right, than I do in signing this paper. If my name goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.” The Emancipation Proclamation provided that as of January 1, “all persons held as...

The economic graph of the year for 2023  – by New Deal democrat I’ll put up the final Coronavirus update of the year later today, but before we leave 2023, let me put up the graph that I think explains about 90% of the economic data this past year. And here it is: This was a graph I created, and included in a piece called “Why the Index of Leading Indicators failed” over at Seeking Alpha. Here’s the explanation: the situation just...

As a career research scientist, I’ve made many predictions in my time. It was fun and rewarding to design controlled experiments to test my predictions. And the wonderful thing about science is that, if your prediction is wrong, you learn something new. I don’t make many predictions myself these days. But I’m interested in the predictions of others. Not because I necessarily trust them. But when someone shows their work, you can weigh their judgment...

Any predictions for the upcoming year? Economy, Election, Health, etc. Those are the main three categories I can think of at this point. Maybe you have others you can bring up? Tags: New Years 2024

I got my BA from the University of Tennessee-Knoxville in 1977. At the time, the university charged no tuition, but “fees” were about $165/quarter for a full load. Of course, as a state university, it was heavily subsidized by state tax dollars. Quite a feat for a state that has no income tax.The business model for higher education has been changing for a while. Small private colleges are closing or merging because of declining enrollment. State...

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. 2023 has been a year of improvement, and that improvements continued in the final installment, as ever so slowly more and more indicators flip neutral or positive. As usual, clicking over and reading will bring you up to the virtual moment, and reward me a little bit for my efforts throughout the year. Next week, as we begin a new year, I anticipate adding a...

I’ve only voted for a Republican once (John Anderson, in a presidential primary in North Carolina), but if I lived in Vermont, I might vote for Republican governor Phil Scott:“Many point to his steady hand during crises, including last summer’s historic flooding and the pandemic, when he appeared in daily, low-key televised briefings to reassure Vermonters and encourage them to take social distancing and mask wearing seriously. Vermont, a sparsely...

Been looking around for a few, new, and good writers to add to Angry Bear. I know we have Robert, New Deal democrat, and Joel amongst us now. I ran into Steve Roth since he posted to Tom Walker’s post. He is allowing me to poach from his new substack Wealth Economics and an older blog site Asymptosis. Happy about this as it allows me to write more freely too. Anyway, this commentary of Steves’ I like. Do We Wildly Underestimate GDP? Wealth...

Introduction: “new analysis finds that that MSSP, the oldest and largest Medicare accountable care organization (ACO) program, has lost money for individuals it covers and overall for Medicare it saves just 75¢ per $1000.” AB: Not much of gain there. What does it do for other programs? “Largest ACO Program Saves Piddling Amounts for Medicare,” PNHP. As taken from “Estimated Savings From the Medicare Shared Savings Program,” JAMA Network,...

Jobless claims end the year on a solidly positive note  – by New Deal democrat For our last data of 2023, initial jobless claims remained at a very low level, up 12,000 from one week ago to 218,000. The four week average declined 250 to 212,000. With the usual one week delay, continuing claims rose 14,000 to 1.875 million: On a YoY% basis, initial claims are up only 2.3%, while the more important four week average is up a mere 0.1%....