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

Scenes from the May employment report: leading indicators and the big picture

Scenes from the May employment report: leading indicators and the big picture  – by New Deal democrat As I wrote Friday, the May employment report was deeply bifurcated, with a strong Establishment survey, but a weak Household survey.   Let’s take a look at some of that bifurcation, focusing on the leading indicators. There are […]

Value-Based Payment Is the New For-Profit Health Care Industry

Value-Based Payment Is the New For-Profit Health Care Industry first appeared at Angry Bear as written by Kip Sullivan, Kay Tillow, & Ana Malinow. This came after it appeared at Truthout. I reposted this one commentary and an early one by Kip because I am starting to see more activity on Value Based medicine. It is […]

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 […]

Dueling May jobs reports: establishment report strong, household report pre-recessionary.

Dueling May jobs reports: establishment report strong, household report pre-recessionary  – by New Deal democrat My focus for this report continued to be whether the leading sectors and other indicators  continued to decline, and whether the pace of growth continued to decelerate. The establishment side of the report was strong, with most leading indicators improving. […]

Intensified decline in manufacturing, but another sign of a bottom in residential construction

Intensified decline in manufacturing, but another sign of a bottom in residential construction  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we start the month with reports on last month’s manufacturing, and construction from two months ago. The ISM manufacturing index has a 75 year record of being a very reliable leading indicator. According to the […]

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 […]

New and improved initial claims! Now including comparison to Sahm Rule

New and improved initial claims! Now including comparison to Sahm Rule  – by New Deal democrat I’m making an important addition to my weekly blurb on jobless claims this week: I’m showing how it compares with and leads the Sahm Rule. Just in case you’re not familiar with the Sahm Rule, it is a rule of […]

Value-based payment has produced little value. It needs a time-out

Kip Sullivan sent this article to me a while back and it was posted. I am starting to see more activity on Value-based-care as an alternative to Fee For Service. The question arises as to how does one measure value received from the care under this regime. It is difficult to measure the value and […]

April JOLTS report noisily shows continued deceleration

New Deal democrat has been doing JOLTS reports for a long time. Some of you may understand what NDd is discussing and some may not. Just a quick one liner to help you understand why this is important. JOLTS is a monthly survey of U.S. job vacancies, hiring, and job separations released by the Bureau […]