In 2006 Joel Garreau wrote “300 Million and Counting” in the Smithsonian. It was then we were at a replacement rate of 2.01. The nation was barely replacing itself.  November 20, 1967, the population of the United States passed 200 million. It had taken ~29 years to add 100 million more people to the US […]

 – by New Deal democrat My “Weekly Indicators” post is up at Seeking Alpha. The trends that have been in place ever since the start of Tariff-palooza!, aided and abetted by the GOP budget-busting bill and the burgeoning Israel-Iran war, are continuing. The US$ is declining, oil prices are spiking, rail traffic has turned negative, and […]

Introduction to Pharmacy Benefit Managers and their role with pharmacies, insurance companies, drug manufacturers, and healthcare. They do have an impact on the costs of healthcare through the pricing of drugs. Also, a large impact on growth in drug prices, higher patient out-of-pocket costs, availability, and the closing of independent pharmacies. What Pharmacy Benefit Managers Do, and […]

I’m reading these religion-based and politically based articles saying Americans need to have more children. WTF? “In an effort to get Americans to have more children, the Trump administration has proposed ideas such as a $5,000 “baby bonus” or a $1,000 tax-deferred investment account for children born between 2025 and 2029. It’s as if we’re […]

City workers in NYC are getting a raw deal or some would call it a better deal (if you are the city) on healthcare when one retires. There must be some type of deal going on here. Medicare Advantage does have its coding issues and smaller sources of healthcare places a member can go to. […]

 – by New Deal democrat As promised yesterday, today let me take an extended look at the important leading sector of housing. I want to walk through each of the important series generally in the order in which they have typically peaked, and how in at least one important respect this time is – somewhat […]

It’s bad enough that Republicans believe poor Americans should be allowed to die without health care. But if you ever need a hospital, whether or not you have insurance, this could kill you, too. “That’s because each node of the system is interdependent. If the 190 rural hospitals estimated in a recent Center for American […]

 – by New Deal democrat Because no data will be released tomorrow due to the Federal holiday, I am going to defer a deeper look at the very important housing sector until then. Today I’ll just note the top line indications from this morning’s housing construction data. As per usual, permits are much less noisy than […]

 – by New Deal democrat Because tomorrow is the Federal Juneteenth Holiday, initial and continuing claims were released today. They continue to show a slowly weakening, but not (yet) recessionary, economy. Initial claims declined -5,000 to 245,000 for the week, while the four week moving average rose another 4,750 to 245,500. This four week average is […]

 – by New Deal democrat Today’s second report was for industrial production, including its important manufacturing component.  The data for May was mixed, as total production (blue) declined -0.2%, while manufacturing production (red) increased 0.1% In March I wrote that “I suspect the big increases in February and March in manufacturing, like this morning’s retail […]