Tag Archives: politics

JOLTS report for June amplifies likelihood of substantial downturn in job growth, upturn in unemployment Before we get to the JOLTS report for June, which was released this morning, I wanted to make a point about the overall trend in employment. Because, the two best short leading indicators for employment and unemployment are both pointing South. First, as I have written dozens of times over the past 10+ years, consumption leads employment,...

August 2, 2022, Letters from an American, Prof. Heather Cox Richardson Today, voters in Kansas overwhelmingly rejected an amendment to their state constitution that would have stripped it of protections for abortion rights. With 86% of the vote in, 62% of voters supported abortion protections; 37% wanted them gone. That spread is astonishing. Kansas voters had backed Trump in 2020; Republicans had arranged for the referendum to fall on the day of...

Various (most) articles I typically get during a week. Some I look up to see what else is going on in the world. Most of this I briefly scan the articles and read what is interesting to me. I sometimes start writing on the topics, am interrupted, and find myself having to recall some of the thoughts with which I started. Economy “Price Gouging at the Pump Results in 235% Profit Jump for Big Oil: Analysis” (commondreams.org), Jessica Corbett...

Kip Sullivan sent this article to me today. Usually, I find them before he sends them to me. A quick introduction to the topic of this article. Billions of dollars are being spent on value-based ACO programs. They have done little to improve Americans’ health or lower health care costs. As the authors point out, of the 50+ ACOs examined, less than a handful cut costs. The ACO organizational cost saves were one percent or less. “Value-based...

Dale Coberly found this excellent analysis on economic happenings by Yanis Varoufakis. How did all of this Inflation come about? Certainly, wages have not been outstripping everything else. Labor is going to take a hit eventually. We do have supply chain issues. Much caused by countries shutting down. Companies not maintaining orders to the manufacturers is also a part. Automotive again shoots itself in this manner and blames everything else....

The conceit of the article on ivermectin by Hooper and Henderson I discussed in my prior post is that medical authorities – mostly the FDA, but also Merck, the maker of ivermectin – are wrongly denying that ivermectin is an effective treatment for COVID.  They raise some issues that are worth discussing.  For example, they talk about the lack of incentive for companies to do clinical trials on existing, off-patent drugs, and about the way FDA...

“Peabody’s Improbable History” Making a short trip in the Wayback Machine to October 2019.   We are going to a right-wing “AMPFests” at one of former president thump’s golf clubs, the National Doral. And we are looking for two trump conspirators having a discussion with one another. One of them has a wire recording device mistaking recoding their conversation. The conversation was captured via a microphone on Roger Stone’s lapel used by a...

Jim Hannan brought this issue up in AB comments section. Been too busy trying to get myself healthy again. Just unbelievable. Republicans want to cut out mandatory spending for veterans. This would be another time where politicians have used “veterans in need” to pursue their own political agenda. Vietnam vets saw similar issues. The Bush Administration was also shortchanging Iraq Veterans. And now veterans facing extreme health issues are being...

A 73-year-old woman died of COVID because she got caught up in conspiracy theories and medical misinformation.  NPR has the details: When Stephanie caught COVID-19 just before Thanksgiving of last year, her daughter Laurie suggested that she get help.“She was really not feeling well, and I was like, ‘Just go to the doctor,'” Laurie recalls.But Stephanie, who was 75 at the time, didn’t go. A few years before, she had been sucked into a world of...

Mitch McConnell Expels Joe Manchin from Republican Party “Mitch McConnell Expels Joe Manchin from Republican Party“ Andy Borowitz, New Yorker, July 28, 2022 WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) – Accusing the West Virginia senator of “collaborating with the enemy,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell angrily announced Joe Manchin’s expulsion from the Republican Party. “Joe Manchin’s behavior during the past twenty-four hours has...