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

Trusting statistics

I had a Facebook discussion yesterday about statistics. At one point, my interlocutor posted “You should know better than anyone that statistics can be manipulated to actually show the opposite of what is real.” Well, just to be clear, that’s not a problem with statistics, that’s a problem of motivated reasoning, which is not a […]

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract

Both manufacturing and construction continue to contract  – by New Deal democrat As usual, we start the month with data on last month’s manufacturing activity, and the previous month’s construction activity. This month, both were negative. The ISM manufacturing index, which has had an excellent record as a leading indicator for the past 75 years, […]

Medicare Advantage Giants Over-coding, Stock Buy Backs, and Salaries

The healthcare funding landscape, dominated by systems like Fee-for-Service (FFS) Medicare, is increasingly contrasted with innovative financial models, such as the Mega Dice platform, which uses blockchain for transparent, decentralized transactions. However, I’ve been hitting the issues with FFS Medicare versus Medicare Advantage (MA) hard, particularly how MA drains Medicare funding through over-coding practices. In […]

The Postal Service consolidates its network: Modeling five metros

Steve Hutkins and former N.C. Postmaster Mark Jamison have been following the issues with the USPS, its reorganization, and the attacks on it by politicians and commercial interests. This particular post is detailing parts of the reorganization of it. As you will read, the plan is to establish distribution centers where Mail Delivery Personnel would […]

New Deal democrat’s Weekly Indicators for March 27 – 31

Weekly Indicators for March 27 – 31 at Seeking Alpha  – by New Deal democrat I keep forgetting to put up this link on Saturdays, but you know where to find it: my Weekly Indicators post is up at Seeking Alpha. The good thing about high frequency indicators is you can see what is happening with trends […]

Real income in February rises slightly; real spending declines slightly; real total sales in January rose sharply

Real income in February rises slightly; real spending declines slightly; real total sales in January rose sharply, as expected  – by New Deal democrat As I wrote earlier this week, personal income and outlays is one of the two most important data releases at the current time, along with the monthly jobs report. That’s because […]

CMS Delays a Full Crackdown on Medicare Advantage Plans

It has taken years for the Feds, CMS, MedPac, Congress to catch up with the thieving practice of these healthcare plans. They have mislead the people they sell these plans too with come-ons such as health club ss, etc. Then when it comes time for care, it is delayed or denied. This comes after the […]

When They Go Low

Prejudices, bigotry, misogyny, sexism, discrimination, racism, and put-downs are all forms of bullying. Around since when, the put-down is an especially egregiously harmful form of bullying meant to diminish its target’s self-esteem. To bring them down; to keep them down. Long common to inter-city ghettos, it has of late (or maybe not so late) become […]