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

Some Saudi-US History

Some Saudi-US History Given Donald Trump’s new commitment to support military adventurism by Saudi Arabia in Yemen and more generally against Iran, it might be worth reconsidering how this alliance developed. The beginning for Saudi Arabia was in 1744 when a wandering radical cleric, Mohammed bin Abdel-Wahhab met up with a local chieftain, Mohammed bin […]

$ 2.1 trillion here $ 2.1 trillion there and soon you’re talking real money

I didn’t think they could shock me. Then I read that the Trump OMB made a $2,000,000,000,000 arithmetic mistake Jon Chait explains “One of the ways Donald Trump’s budget claims to balance the budget over a decade, without cutting defense or retirement spending, is to assume a $2 trillion increase in revenue through economic growth. […]

Debts, Deficits and Social Security

Dan here…I noticed several articles in the NYT (here is one forcasting Trump/Mulvaneys’ Budget Proposal 2017, contrasting safety net program cuts with the Medicare/Social Security deficit busting programs. In an aside no less. Here we go again…as if deficit spending reduction was important to Republicans, and Social Security was one of the chief problems. I […]

Republicans Can Seize a Political Opportunity by Backing Student Loan Reform

Allan Collinge is the founder of the Student Loan Justice Organization a grassroots citizen’s organization dedicated to returning standard consumer protections to student loans. The group was started in March of 2005 and has focused primarily on research, media outreach, and grassroots lobbying initiatives. located in Washington DC. From time to time Angry Bear has […]

“It’s The Economy, Stupid!”: The Iranian Presidential Election

by Barkley Rosser “It’s The Economy, Stupid!”: The Iranian Presidential Election “It’s the economy, stupid!” quoth James Carville back in 1992, adviser to Bill Clinton during his successful presidential election campaign then. And so quoth Stella Morgana in an informative piece written a few days ago prior to and about the Iranian presidential election as […]

Did Recep Tayyip Erdogan Make War on the USA ?

I assume the reader is familiar with the recent violence at the Turkish embassy & Turkish ambassador’s residence in Washington DC. “Body guards” (really thugs) brought by Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan attacked peaceful demonstrators. It is clear how the fight started, a rather thin not too tall man in a suit attacked. He has […]

Medicare does “NOT PAY FOR ITSELF”

In the comments section of an earlier post (1/3 of Medicare is Wasted), Maggie Mahar had stated to everyone; “Medicare Does Not Pay for Itself.” This is what I meant by that comment: “For more than a decade the federal government has borrowed to pay for the rising cost of Medicare. Debt-financing of Medicare will […]

1/3 of Medicare Spending is Wasted

This was initially posted at Angry Bear September 14, 2014 by Maggie Mahar of Health Beat A little history: Dan and I invited Maggie Mahar to write at Angry Bear Blog as I was covering much of the Healthcare debate and Maggie could add much more in-depth knowledge and analysis of healthcare than I could. […]

Burning a Source ?

Who thinks that Trump is “in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion” ? That is the very hottest quote in the must read Phllip Rucker “analysis” of what is very wrong with the President. I immediately tried to guess who had told Rucker that. The source is “One GOP figure close to the […]

Where the ACA Should Go Next?

run75441: This is the first in a series of 3 posts written by Maggie Mahar discussing Medicare, what it covers, and what it lacks in coverage. Maggie touches on the Public Option and Medicare. I start to get edgy when people talk about the Public Option, Universal Coverage, Single Payor, Medicare-For-All, etc. as they do […]