Relevant and even prescient commentary on news, politics and the economy.

The Legacy

America has set its life upon a cast and will now stand the hazard of the die.  As of today, most likely, Trump’s legacy will be that he sold out the United States of America, Ukraine, Europe, and Taiwan for his own personal benefit, and perhaps a nineteenth-century fantasy.  That his threats to annex Panama […]

January income and spending show unresolved seasonality in a typical late cycle configuration

 – by New Deal democrat There were two important points in this morning’s personal income and spending report for January. The first is that there appears to be some unresolved seasonality at work. The second is that nevertheless both were weaker than one year ago. Nominally personal income rose 0.9%, while spending declined -0.2%. Since […]

Dental health and mental health

Back in the early 80s, Marshall and Warren made the link between gastric ulcers and Helicobacter pylori infections. Suddenly, a painful chronic condition that increased the risk of stomach cancer was curable with antibiotics. A major public health scourge today in America is dementia, particularly Alzheimer’s disease. There’s growing evidence that periodontitis is linked to […]

I Guess the Nursing Homes don’t care

With all the focus on Medicaid, I have been wondering; why haven’t we heard from the long-term care industry? Surely they must be hearing about the potential cut of $880 billion within the Medicaid budget. Oh, and this is a minimum directive given to the committees of jurisdiction as noted in their 58 page budget […]

Musk and his lies, lies, and more lies

More political coverage this morning. If one can call it such. Trump lying about Medicaid and Musk doing the same about his cost cutting activities which is causing injury to millions of people. ~~~~~~~ He’s lying about what we did in the Clinton administration, lying when he says public servants are our enemies, and lying […]

Medicaid Fraud Reduction Might Save $50 Billion

At the most. The GOP leadership keeps trumpeting work requirements and fraud when asked where they’ll find $880 billion in cuts to health care programs. That’s nonsense according to Merrill Goozner. The fraudulent work requirement meme, GoozNews I was glad to see fellow substacker Paul Krugman weigh in this morning on how the Republican Party is attacking […]

Taking Medicaid Away from Those Who Need It the Most

Cruel and Usual: Republicans Prepare to Gut Medicaid – by Paul Krugman West Virginia is a very red state; Donald Trump received more than two thirds of its votes last year. It’s also a poor state, left behind by the 21st century economy. Because incomes are low, it pays very little in federal income taxes — less […]

The end of “steady as she goes” in jobless claims?

– by New Deal democrat This week’s report on initial jobless claims was of particular interest, because of the issue of whether Federal employees laid off by the new Administration would cause an increase. It appears they did. Initial jobless claims rose 22,000 for the week to 242,000, and the four week moving average rose 8,500 […]

RFK Jr wants to cut Alzheimers research

As the American population ages, the burden of dementia care is increasing. While the GOP congress hopes to ease that burden by cutting Medicaid funding and letting those folks die*, RFK Jr is tackling the prevention side to make sure more Americans and their loved ones suffer from this awful condition: “Robert F. Kennedy Jr., […]