Trump fired BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer for allegedly manipulating statistics to make him look bad. In support of the firing, he pointed to what he said were exaggerated jobs numbers in the Biden administration that had to be revised downward by—wait for it—BLS commissioner Erika McEntarfer! “How could downward revisions released during Biden’s presidency have […]

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For some years now, unbeknownst to some of us, we have been witness to a 100 year (and more) flood of historical events.  For some months now, we’ve been watching a slow-motion implosion of one of these events from these front row seats.  Slow, in our time —  a flash, in history’s eons.  Watching with […]

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“Five Questions with Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows,” Civil Discourse Shenna Bellows is Maine’s 50th Secretary of State and the first woman to serve in that role. She’s led implementation of reforms like automatic voter registration and online voter registration in her state and has taken strong stands against Donald Trump—she ruled that he wasn’t […]

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Healthcare is expensive as it is. You have copays, etc. to shell out money for when required. It becomes even more expensive if you do not have healthcare insurance of some type. Even if you have healthcare insurance, it may not cover everything. The plus side of the insurance being, you will pay the negotiated […]

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 – by New Deal democrat Twenty years ago, Prof. Edward Leamer gave an important speech at the Fed’s Jackson Hole, WY, retreat called “Housing IS the Business Cycle.” In that speech he discussed the fact that, historically, private residential construction as a share of GDP on average peaked 7 quarters before the onset of recessions, followed […]

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As my AB peeps know, I loves me some prophecy. As a consumer, not a producer. My wife and I play this little game. If I make a prediction, she grabs a post-it note and writes it down, then dates it and makes me sign it. She saves them and we review them periodically. The […]

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The Fed has two jobs: (1) control inflation and (2) maximize employment. So how’s that going? “That’s a change in tone from last week, when most Fed policymakers voted to leave their influential interest rate unchanged for the fifth time this year. Fed officials had been content to wait and see how tariffs were moving […]

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In support of Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice, I have been writing in support of his efforts to seek loan forgiveness which commercial business enjoys as well as US citizens. Student loan debt is the second-highest consumer debt category after mortgages. Student loan debt in the United States totals $1606.7 trillion; annual growth resumed in 2024 following […]

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This is stuff I do not even think about. I am on the precipice of it happening as I age into it more and more. I am already there. “How Dangerous Design in our cities and homes is killing our olders,” Carbon Upfront! The Wall Street Journal recently published Seven Ways to Track Your Risk of […]

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Or you can talk about something else. We used to do this in the past and sometimes it was very successful. As a subscriber. I am posting part of a Paul Krugman commentary. It may interest you. You can always use your own topic. as a start of a discussion too. ~~~~~~~ Part of a […]

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– by New Deal democrat As I wrote earlier this week, the positive trend in initial jobless claims is one of the most important data points indicating there is no imminent threat of recession. That continues, but what is increasingly disconcerting is the completely contrary signal from continuing claims. Let’s deal with the weekly numbers first. […]

The post The contradictory signs from initial and continuing jobless claims: what do they mean? appeared first on Angry Bear.

You will read more on the profitability of healthcare plans as detailed by KFF. A brief introduction to this issue in an article by KFF. In 2023, per enrollee gross margins were highest in the Medicare Advantage market, and medical loss ratios were lowest in the individual insurance market. While both gross margins and medical […]

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Charles Gaba at ACA Signups is reviewing Affordable(?) Care rate changes for 2026. We have been reading quite a bit about the new rate forthcoming for 2026. From the looks of it, I suspect many people will be going without healthcare insurance in North Carolina, etc. I will grab certain states I know some people […]

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The “health” that drives private sector health insurance is the health of the corporate bottom line. As understand it, the “advantage” of Medicare Advantage was supposed to be lower costs for better benefits that only the free market could promise. How’s that working out? “UnitedHealthcare said in its second quarter earnings call that it plans […]

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In the past six months, the Trump Administration, acting through Elon Musk’s DOGE, cut more than 10% of the staff at the National Weather Service. But it looks like TACO doesn’t just apply to tariffs: “The National Weather Service has received permission to hire 450 meteorologists, hydrologists and radar technicians just months after being hit […]

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 – by New Deal democrat We’ve settled back in to our typical post-employment week lack of new data, so today is a good day to update the leading indicators from the employment report, especially in view of their important contribution to why I went on “recession watch” yesterday. As you probably already know, because I harp […]

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Pinning down the numbers making up the 16 million people without healthcare insurance by 2034. From where did the number come? Government Medicaid Healthcare Insurance covered nearly 85 million people as of June 2024. According to the Congressional Budget Office, the changes to Medicaid and health insurance outlined in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act could lead […]

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One reason recycling may not work for plastics is much of plastic molding uses virgin resin. Reusing plastics may not flow or work as well. We really need to look closely at our recycling effort to determine whether plastics can be reused. It may make better sense to destroy the material after one use if […]

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mRNA vaccines proved transformational in the COVID-19 pandemic. Since then, they’ve allowed a rapid pivot to attack new variants. They saved tens of millions of lives worldwide, and prevented long COVID in survivors. “Infectious disease experts say the mRNA technology used in vaccines is safe, and they credit its development during the first Trump administration […]

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“Recession Watch” instituted for US economy, as economically weighted ISM indexes indicate present contraction  – by New Deal democrat Two months ago, in response to the new orders components of the economically weighted ISM manufacturing and services indexes, I hoisted a yellow flag “Recession Watch.” That continued last month as well. This month the economically […]

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