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

Buprenorphine Naloxone & Naltrexone

I think the main practical point is that pharmacological treatment of opioid addiction is effective and yet not as easily available as it should be. Not all opioid use disorder (OUD) specialized treatment programs offer medication assisted treatment (I have a somewhat out of date report that in 2017 “only … 35.5% offered any single […]

Court Again Rejects Alabama Scraping of Black-Majority Districts

As taken from the Wall Street Journal September 26, 2023. If you have not been paying attention to what is happening in Alabama, this will bring you up to date. SCOTUS again rejected Alabama’s attempt to pack most of Alabama’s Black American citizenry into one congressional district. Alabama’s desires to maintain white majorities in six […]

Income-based pricing for Electricity is a bad idea

Income-based pricing is a bad idea, The one-handed economist, David Zetland I learned, via GS, that some Berkeley researchers have proposed [pdf] customers should pay for electricity based on their income. Thus, I would pay half of what you would pay if I made half the income you did. This is a terrible idea, IMO, but I can […]

New 20+ year record high mortgage rates begin to impact home sales

New 20+ year record high mortgage rates begin to impact home sales; bifurcation in new vs. existing home prices continues  – by New Deal democrat In addition to updated reports on new home sales and prices, and existing home prices this morning, there’s some very important news on mortgage rates. Namely, at 7.51%, mortgage rates […]

Is It Worth the Pollution and Costs? Flying Montreal Bagels to Vancouver, Canada

We do not measure the amount of pollution and costs incurring when products are transporting in a way having greater pollution and cost. This as measured against local products. A comment on Lloyd Alter’s piece discusses dough coming from Italy for pizzas? “I’m less concerned about this than that our major grocery chains. Currently, PC […]

Bad Journalism

Hmm. Maybe Trump *does* have a point about the lying press after all. Here’s the Reuters headline:“Biden, Trump to woo union workers in Michigan as auto strikes grow” So where are Trump and Biden going to woo union workers? “Former President Donald Trump is scheduled to visit a Macomb County automotive supplier of engine and […]

A Healthcare Insurance System Making Patients Sicker and CEOs Rich

A bit of a rewrite on this commentary to make it clear and precise in what it is saying. What is occurring is the Insurance Companies and their CEOs are profiting off of our illness. Insurance Policy pricing keeps going up along with the healthcare insurance deductibles. Unless one can afford the insurance premiums, people […]

Fentanyl, Methadone, Buprenorphine and Naltrexone

One of these things is not like the others. Fentanyl is killing about 70,000 Americans a year. The others are known to be useful in treating opioid dependency yet (in 2014 sorry will Google more) only half of private opioid use disorder treatment programs offered pharmaceuticals and less tha one third of patients actually received […]

New Deal democrats Weekly Indicators September 18 – 22 2023

Weekly Indicators for September 18 – 22 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat My Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. With interest rates at or near multi-decade highs, and the existing home market completely seized up, the background financial condition have trended even worse. Meanwhile the shorter term indicators may be getting reading […]