– by New Deal democrat  The snooze-a-thon in jobless claims continues, as both initial and continuing claims are well-behaved within the narrow range where they have been generally for the past six months. Initial claims were unchanged least week at 208,000, while the four week moving average declilned -3,500 to 210,00. With the usual one […]

The post The snooze-a-than in jobless claims continues; what I am looking for in tomorrow’s jobs report appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 […]

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I first caught up with this article on MedPage Today, “Doc Blows Whistle on Cigna.” This is another example of what is going on to cuts costs by reducing the time to decide on important procedures and functions which require critical analysis. Doc Blows Whistle on Cigna Cigna increased its efforts to speed up claims […]

The post A Doctor at Cigna Said Her Bosses Pressured Her to Review Patients’ Cases Too Quickly appeared first on Angry Bear.

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. Here are the nominal […]

The post How Did Under-40s Get So Much Richer During Covid? appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat After almost half a year of general stabilization, or very slow deceleration, the JOLTS report for March featured multi-year lows in almost all of its components.  Job openings (blue in the graph below), a soft statistic that is polluted by imaginary, permanent, and trolling listings, declined -325,000 to a three year […]

The post March JOLTS report: declines in everything, fortunately including layoffs appeared first on Angry Bear.

by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog A preliminary programming note: In addition to the manufacturing and construction reports, today we also get the JOLTS report for March, and updated motor vehicle sales reports. Yesterday we also got the Employment Cost Index for Q1. I will comment on the JOLTS report later today. I’ll comment on […]

The post Manufacturing treads water in April, while real construction spending turned down in March (UPDATE: and heavy truck sales weren’t so great either) appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 wasthe 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 post Eric Segall tells us what he really thinks about the Roberts court appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 then 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 […]

The post Supreme Court watchers mollified themselves (and others) with vague promises  appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 […]

The post Open Thread May 1 2024 so trump is Fined $9,000 appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 post Postal regulator directs USPS to request an advisory opinion on DFA or to show cause why it won’t appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog Our final housing statistics of the month are the FHFA and Case Shiller repeat sales indexes. As usual, keep in mind that mortgage rates lead home sales, which in turn lead prices. Which, in turn, lead the official CPI measure of shelter by a year or more. […]

The post Repeat home sale prices accelerated in February (but don’t fret yet) appeared first on Angry Bear.

By Les Leopold Chelsea Green Publishing Interesting book I just started to touch upon. Book review by Paul Prescod. Last section touches upon why layoffs may happen . . . Stock Buybacks and Deregulation. Across the political spectrum, it seems as if the right to decent employment has disappeared from the agenda. Wars, natural disasters, […]

The post Sorta a book review “Wall Street’s War on Workers” appeared first on Angry Bear.

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, […]

The post 2024 Election Life and Death Game Theory: Post- Conventions (full text) appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog About 10 years ago, I went looking for what I called “mid cycle indicators.” In other words, I wanted to go beyond leading or lagging indicators to find at least a few that tend to peak somewhere near the middle of an expansion. That synapse was jangled […]

The post Looking at historical “mid cycle indicators” – what do they say now? appeared first on Angry Bear.

 – by New Deal democrat The Bonddad Blog On Friday the CDC updated its COVID death statistics through March 31, which means that we now have 4 full years of data. It also updated its hospitalization data through April 20, and to cut to the chase, last week saw a record low hospitalizations for COVID […]

The post Coronavirus dashboard, 4 years into the pandemic: all-time low in hospitalizations, deaths likely to follow appeared first on Angry Bear.

Matteo Wong The Atlantic Abbreviated take at Angry Bear on what is happening at Tesla. Presently, the media has not been to kind to Tesla and its founder Elon Musk. The latest in The Atlantic gives a run down on the past and where Musk may take Tesla in the future. It sounds and looks […]

The post Tesla Is Not the Next Ford. It’s the Next Con Ed appeared first on Angry Bear.

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 […]

The post Nestlé adds sugar to baby food in low-income countries, report finds . . . appeared first on Angry Bear.

At Thursday’s Supreme Court hearing on Trump’s immunity claim, Justice Alito worried that prosecuting former presidents would create an incentive for incumbent presidents to subvert democracy to remain in office and avoid prosecution (Transcript, p. 110-11): JUSTICE ALITO: All right.  Let me end –end with just a question about what is required for the functioning […]

The post An economic analysis of presidential immunity appeared first on Angry Bear.

by Matthew Cunnigham – Cook The problems with Medicare Advantage is coding and pricing for care. And Fee for Service participants pay for the MA costs even though they do not use MA. “When accounting for favorable selection of enrollees in MA and higher MA coding intensity, we estimate Medicare spends approximately 22 percent more […]

The post Where Does Traditional Medicare Go: Profit-Driven Chaos or Patient-Centered Community? appeared first on Angry Bear.

by Lloyd Alter Carbon Upfront! The Toronto Star leads today with a story, “Ripe for a challenge,” in which climate change reporter Kate Allen describes attempts to grow strawberries indoors in Canada “as red-ripe and juicy as if they came out of a sunny field in July.” Canadians import C$6.2 billion more fresh and frozen […]

The post Do we need to change the way we grow things, or change the way we eat? appeared first on Angry Bear.