I am X-military, having served during the Vietnam conflict where many of my friends died or were injured. If you chat with me about your war stories, I will probably just nod my head. My overseas duty was with 8th Marines in Cuba as a 2881 MOS even though I was deadly with an M14. […]
“even if Trump’s push to establish authoritarian rule is defeated, it will take many years to recover what we’ve lost.” I have been thinking of this all along. Domestically? Tr_mp has been breaking the nations gains down. What comes to mind is reducing the minimum wage for federal contractors, rolling back rules that strengthening overtime […]
Two articles in this commentary. The first CEPR article discusses selective loss of Medicare Advantage enrollees. This not necessarily because of people leaving the plans. It is more on the order of the plans cutting benefits in certain plans and also cutting coverage in certain markets of the US. People are also using their plans […]
I’ve written previously about the shortage of primary care physicians in the US. In principle, one way to address this shortage is to admit more international medical graduates as physicians. But an historic barrier to this solution is the requirement for US residency training. Some states are passing laws allowing international medical graduates if they […]
– by New Deal democrat I am currently on vacation, and as the shutdown continues with no end in sight, the only sources of economic data are from the Fed and its regional banks, the States (unemployment claims and sporadic updates on tax withholding), and private sources. In other words, I might play hooky several days […]
“Student loan debt swelled under Biden, despite historic forgiveness,” CNBC Some Factoids: Student loan debt grew during the Pandemic Former President Joe Biden forgave more student debt than any other president. However, the country’s education debt tab still grew during his presidency. Much of this is due to interest incurred during the pandemic Outstanding federal student debt stood at […]
It appears that the government shutdown has finally caught up with the CDC . . . none of their Covid demographics were updated this week, and the wastewater data still only goes up till the week ending September 20th . . . I don’t know if the data that they’ve missed will be caught up […]
Back in the mid-80s I started a personal project of reading history. I was motivated by the desire to understand the differences between my world view and that of my father’s generation. I started with the Vietnam war. I got a draft card at 18 and my number was pulled when I was 19, but […]
In a universe of probabilities where mistakes can’t be undone, decision makers must do their best to get it right; give us their best guess based on best thinking based on the best information available to them in order to jigger the odds as much as possible in favor of a good outcome. In a […]
Earlier this year, my wife traded her 2003 Pontiac Vibe (manual transmission, window cranks) for a 2024 Hyundai Elantra. The Elantra not only has electric windows, it also has a key fob that allows the bearer to open the door and turn on the car without inserting the key anywhere. It has a computer monitor […]