Tag Archives: politics

by Dean Baker Commerce Department reported that GDP grew at a 1.6 percent annual rate in the first quarter, some-what lower than had generally been predicted. However, the headline number was held down by slow inventory accumulation, which subtracted 0.35 percentage points from growth, and a big rise in the trade deficit, which lowered growth by 0.86 percentage points. Pulling out these factors, final sales to domestic producers grew at a...

Doug Smith Los Angeles Times Monthly payments for housing could get thousands of homeless people off the streets. It sounds like a voucher idea where the funds could only be used only for housing, apartments and heat and electricity. Or paid directly. A stipulated basic income to house thousands of homeless people in various situations (apartments, boarding, with family or friends, etc.) as advocated by researchers. The idea or potential...

I first caught up with this article on MedPage Today, “Doc Blows Whistle on Cigna.” I also read the ProPublic report. Both are reporting on denial of claims before and after treatment and the productivity of claims reviewers. Additionally, the report discusses the use of labor (nurses, etc.) outside of the US to evaluate claims and their errors. All of these attempts are examples of what is going on to cuts costs by reducing the time to decide on...

by Steve Roth Wealth Economics This picture from the Center for American Progress, and variations, have been making the rounds on the interwebs lately, eg here, here, and here. The headline is that younger households got 49% richer during/since Covid, in inflation-adjusted “real” terms. But some drill-down is in order here. What actually happened? Start with background. There are about 38 million households with under-40 heads of...

Law professor Eric Segall is a leading critic of the Supreme Court.  In a blog post today, he doesn’t pull any punches: The disaster that was the Trump v. United States oral argument reminded me of how little the Roberts Court has actually cared about rule of law values and legal transparency during its 18-year run. Leaving aside the overturning or narrowing of numerous landmark cases from abortion to affirmative action to the free exercise of...

Dahlia Lithwick and Joseph Stern as taken from Slate Good read as one can see how the SCOTUS 5 or 6 are twisting the logic of Constitution first and portraying the president into something more reasonable. Military swears first to the Constitution. This is a very strange read for myself. Others may not find it so strange and such is open to discussion. ~~~~~~~~ Mollified themselves with vague promises of when the rubber hit the road,...

Do you, does anyone, really believe trump gives a damn if he is fined $9,000? That is not a threat to him. And what jail cell, in what jail will they put this threatening president in? I know one county jail, Cook County Jail in Chicago. Let him mingle with the general population. Let him bluster with them. This is a problem with trump. He knows nothing will happen to him. Those fines will disappear and he will walk. He will not go to jail. His...

by Steve Hutkins Save The Post Office USPS: For those who are wondering, DFA is “Delivering for America.” It consists of various initiatives, some of which have been initiated and some which have not. The initiatives are found in the Table of Contents on Page 1 listed as Strategies in the Delivering for America document. The failure of timely delivery of the mail in Richmond and now Atlanta utilizing RPDCs has caused concern. Both Richmond and...

This is the easiest one. No possibility of changes. It’s Biden/Harris v. Trump/Sycophant. For Biden, the alternative is clear: the race would be between Kamala Harris and DJT. Credit where due: Biden has reconfirmed on multiple occasions that he does not intend to replace Harris with Sherrod Brown the Mythical Generic Democrat with No Baggage, or even the fifth columnist whose every peccadillo is known to the opposing party (G.N.) As of this...

SWI swissinfo.ch An interesting story coming out of Switzerland about Nestlé. In 2017 Nestlé adds sugar to baby food in low-income countries, report finds . . . made the following plan: Between 2017 and 2020 we want to reduce the added sugar in our products by a further 5%. In 2017 alone, Nestlé Switzerland withdrew 111 tonnes of sugar from its products, which is the equivalent of 22 million teaspoons or 444 million kcal. Much work had already...