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

Barkley . . .

Dan Crawford: The passing of Barkley Rosser is terribly sad news. Angry Bear has had connection to Barkley since 2006 at least. He was also instrumental for helping Bruce Webb and the topic of Social Security gain traction nationally. Tyler Cowen at Marginal Revolution posted a link to his profile “Man in motion,”- JMU at James […]

Our success or failure in life may be influenced by where we’re born

Economist David Zetland lets us know our place of birth has a much larger impact on our success or failure globally than what we suspect. It is not solely up to us to be successful. The country of our birth has a great impact. Understanding this, exploring books about success can offer valuable insights into […]

Discussion on Solutions to Social Security at Angry Bear

A different viewpoint by myself which is not so new and very workable. Dean Baker at CEPR offers up his viewpoint on saving Social Security. I believe we are in close proximity to a solution except I would suggest a different source of funds. Dale, Bruce, and Arne have talked this simple solution up until […]

Addressing Teacher Shortage with New State Funding and Programs

According to U.S. Department of Education data, total enrollment in teacher preparation programs in Michigan has also been steadily dropping. More than 23,000 prospective teachers were in the pipeline in 2008. That figure eventually dipped below 7,000 in 2016 before increasing slightly to around 12,000 in 2019. “New program launching to address Michigan’s teacher shortage,” […]

December Update: COVID Death Rates by Partisan Lean & Vaccination Rate

ACA Signups blog and healthcare author, Charles Gaba does a rewrite of an earlier commentary at his site. If you missed it, Angry Bear blog featured “33 Months of COVID In One Image” also. Recently, this writeup’s stats was used by Prof. Paul Krugman in his recent NYT article, “Will 2024 Be a Vaccine Election?” […]

What Is The Bielefeld School Of Economics?

What Is The Bielefeld School Of Economics? by Barkley Rosser @ Econospeak  This piece is about a paper I have just written for a special issue to appear in a journal I used to edit about the late economist, Peter Flaschal. Who most of you are probably thinking, although maybe not all of you? He […]

The Shrinking Future of Colleges, Especially the Small Ones

Interesting dilemma for higher education. I had heard that some colleges were having issues attracting students to their campuses. The high tuition and a lack of funding in the form of scholarships, grants, awards, etc. have been an issue when they do not keep up with the costs of colleges. Another issue has crept up […]

What News Was in My In-Box, Dec. 7, 2022

Assorted topics this time. Consumerism was actually the first topic on the list of links in my In-Box. I am interested in seeing how the US negotiates with the Taiwanese on a new plant and what the US will do with Supply Chains. It is not as simple as what many people think. You should […]

From the frontiers of viral immunology

Ever since the COVID mRNA vaccines (Moderna and Pfizer) proved themselves, I became convinced they are the future of viral vaccines. Looks like a polyvalent flu vaccine is in the works that may obviate annual strain-specific vaccines. “In this work, we developed a nucleoside-modified messenger RNA (mRNA)–lipid nanoparticle vaccine encoding hemagglutinin antigens from all 20 […]