How economists forgot the real world The book’s argument is that in straining to peer through the chaos and confusion of the world to the underlying mechanisms, too much economic thinking, both in Ricardo’s day and ours, mistook a small, unrepresentative sample as the whole picture. This has distorted the vision of generations. If your scientific ideal is a simple, logical model, there is a tendency to focus on those parts of reality that are more regular...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]but some 3+ year highs in unemployment metrics  – by New Deal democrat My question over the past year has been whether “decleration” would turn into “deterioration.” For a “soft landing,” deceleration would need to end, and the numbers stabilize, vs. continuing to deteriorate towards an actual downturn.  The verdict this month was mixed. On the […] The post February jobs report: weak...

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Yet, Musk and Trump would have us believe Social Security is ripe with waste and fraudulent payments to undeserving recipients. I would not say Musk is ignorant as he knows exactly what he is doing in an attempt to turn people against programs which benefit them. As Dale Coberly and Nancy Altman would tell you, […] The post “Less than 1 percent of Social Security payments are improper” appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]So they say . . . It was all a bad misunderstanding. So . . . if this is all a misunderstanding, give the fired people back their jobs . . . if they will take them back. “Elon Musk tells Republicans he isn’t to blame for mass firings of federal workers” The Guardian Elon […] The post Musk and Trump sell a Bridge to Federal Workers appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]You have to kind of wonder what some people doing the job they are supposed to do and perhaps have a different opinion, think. Perhaps, and I do say perhaps, the honorable Justice Barrett gets the weevy-jeevys when the President is nearby. Watch the clip in the link below. Courtesy of Above The Law. The […] The post Justice Amy Barrett Caught after Trump’s State of the Union Address appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]As a subscriber to xpostfactoid, I have access to some excellent commentary by Andrew Spung. This is not a person I would argue with about the ACA, Medicare or Medicaid, etc. Anyway, the WSJ has an article touting Medicaid cuts which did catch his attention and is the basis for his commentary. The link is […] The post Medicaid Cuts as Promoted by WSJ appeared first on Angry Bear.

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Jobless claims decline back into neutral territory  – by New Deal democrat After last week’s big jump, this week initial jobless claims declined -21,000 to 221,000. The four-week moving average increased 250 to 224,250. With the typical one-week delay, continuing claims rose 42,000 to 1.897 million: On the more important YoY basis for forecasting purposes, […] The post Jobless claims decline back into neutral territory appeared...

6th of March 2025 My Lords, I will not speak directly to the proposals of the report to improve our military capabilities but will consider the framework in which they are set. The report’s underlying assumption is that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made Europe a much more dangerous place, against which we have to rearm ourselves if we are not to suffer the fate of Ukraine somewhere down the line. The report was published before Trump’s victory in the US election and therefore...

5th of March 2025 My Lords, like other noble Lords, I commend the efforts of the noble Baroness and her committee to shorten and simplify the code and guide. That they have not altogether freed themselves from the bureaucracy involved in all this is more a sign of the times than of any lack of effort on their part. I welcome the obligation to register non-financial interests and reduce registrable interests from 10 to seven, but I still struggle to understand the purpose of the...