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

Part 2 of Saving Rural Hospitals – Problems and Solutions for Rural Hospitals

I broke this report into two parts as it becomes harder to complete reading when each of us has other obligations. CHQPR or the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform is a national policy center facilitating improvements in healthcare payment and delivery systems. As explained earlier in Part 1, rural hospitals are facing issues […]

F-35 Maintenance Costs

$42,000 per flight hour that’s 7 switchblade drones per hour. It raises the question of whether the F35 would be cost effective if we got the planes for free (not $80,000,000 each ). Currently F35s manage on average 11.2 flight hours per critical failure (I got that one partly from memory and partly from googling […]

Gasoline Pricing during my lifetime

A bit of Kevin Drum: “Raw data: Gasoline during my lifetime,” jabberwocking.com, Kevin Drum. I had just been discharged from Marine Corp active duty in 71, married, and bought a boxy Datson 510 to get around in the Chicago suburbs. Finished up at one college in 72 and started finishing my BA at another college […]

Women’s out-of-pocket healthcare costs are higher than for men

Out-of-pocket healthcare costs are $15 billion higher for US women than men, qz.com, Clarisa Diaz Healthcare financial burden on women persists outside of maternity related care. That is the crux of the issue. Women pay more for healthcare. Consulting firm Deloitte: The analysis of the resulting costs after the current benefit coverage is applied, indicates […]

Hardly Worth the Wait – OIG report on Sorting & Delivery Centers

It appears Postmaster General Louis DeJoy is well on his way to implementing his modernization vision of the future US Post Office. The is not going to be pretty. If even half of the claims made by Steve Hutchins and Mark Jamison are true, the nation will suffer a loss which will be impossible to […]

Drones and Trenches

For less than $1 thousand a pop, Ukrainians are taking out Russian tanks costing $3 million. For less than $300 thousand a pop, they are taking out Russian warships costing $ billions. Ukraine is doing these things with homemade cardboard drones, store-bought drones, and their roll-your-own mostly-submerged drones. Ukraine’s TLK-150 and TLK-400 submersible drones with […]

Initial jobless claims remain higher on a YoY basis

Initial jobless claims remain higher on a YoY basis, but do not suggest near term recession  – by New Deal democrat Initial jobless claims rose 2,000 last week to 211,000. The 4 week moving average declined -6,250 to 211,000. With a one week lag, continuing claims rose 42,000 to 1.670 million: Although this appears very […]

A government in which racial minorities have a say is illegitimate”

No, this is not the title of this essay by Prof. Heather Cox Richardson who also writes “Letters from an American,” a substack drawing hundreds of commenters daily. Some Republicans are attempting to make this argument a reality. The insistence that of their opponents being socialists goes hand in hand with their effort to suppress […]

Why the public still views inflation as a major problem, despite the official numbers

Why the public still views inflation as a major problem, despite the official numbers  – by New Deal democrat This is the topic I indicated last week I wanted to write about more at length.  Paul Krugman wrote last week about the disconnect between most economists, who see inflation declining, and voters, who still see […]