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

The bank crisis is the latest argument to expand Postal Service banking

An April 20th commentary pulled off of Steve Hutkins’ “Save the Post Office Blog.” Prof. Hutkins tracks what is going on with the USPS, what PG Louis DeJoy is up to, and the transition of the USPS to what DeJoy believes is a profit center and supposedly better than the present. Except the plan is […]

Fee For Service versus Fee For Value Healthcare

The following definitions I found in the article “What Kaiser’s Acquisition of Geisinger Means For Us All,” Forbes, Robert Pearl M.D. May 31, 2023 There are a couple of terms within the article which I would like to point out. Fee For Service and Fee For Value. For clarity, Traditional Medicare uses Fee For Service methodology […]

Another Student Loan Scam Involving Prestigious Universities this time

I took this article and broke it into different parts. If it does not make sense, blame me and not the Insider author. This is a different topic but along the lines of student loans which Alan Collinge of Student Loan Justice has been fighting. Republicans support these companies. Democrats are pushing back. Fomer students […]

The modern free press

“The modern free press,” Infidel753 Blog, Infidel753 In the US, we have probably the world’s strongest protections for free speech and freedom of the press, thanks to the First Amendment and the citadel of jurisprudence built on it.  And yet the mainstream media here are usually strikingly timid and reluctant to call a spade a […]

Another Legal Challenge of the ACA Coming Out of Texas and the Fifth District

Cost-Free Preventive Care Under the ACA Faces Legal Challenge, JAMA | JAMA Network, Gregory Curfman, MD; Kirsten Bibbins-Domingo. The same federal Jackass judge in Texas who struck down the entire ACA (2018) has risen again. In this particular instance, he is taking aim at a core protection of the ACA or Cost-free preventive care. These […]

Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare

Piercing the myth: How privatizers got their mitts on Medicare, The Stand, Kip Sullivan Insurance companies decried Medicare’s fee-for-service model. But then Congress let them replace it with something much worse. (May 4, 2023) — Congress enacted Medicare in 1965 as a fee-for-service system because the insurance industry did not want to insure the elderly […]

14th Amendment, Debt Ceiling & Perpetual Bonds

When I read this (third article below), I thought of an earlier commentary by one of our peer-reviewed economists. This is what Robert Waldman had to say: “Investors are glad to pay the Treasury to keep their wealth safe. Now consider the US Federal Government intertemporal budget constraint — the present value of spending must […]

The budget ceiling and the Gephardt Rule

The so-called Gephardt Rule (in honor of Representative Dick Gephardt who introduced its first version) provided that when the House agrees to a budget resolution, the Clerk shall prepare a joint resolution suspending the debt limit for the fiscal year covered by the budget resolution. It was repealed at the beginning of the 107th Congress, […]

Labor has gained and Corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of all gains

Labor has gained since the pandemic, but corporations have been sucking up the lion’s share of those gains . . .  – by New Deal democrat I neglected to add a link to my Weekly Indicators piece at Seeking Alpha on Saturday, so here it is. Also, I’ve been trying to understand why, with all of the […]