A futile quest, Why “performance” measurement is not working, Minnesota Physician The Independent Medical Business Journal, Kip Sullivan, April 2020 Intro: “Pay for Performance” is not a new catch phrase in the healthcare community, but it is one that has seen a recent spike in interest from the general public and healthcare world alike. The renewed […] [Read More...]
Frederick Douglass’s oration on the 4th of July (abridged)
Frederick Douglass’s oration on the 4th of July (abridged) The middle portion of Douglass’s famous speech, delivered in 1852 to white abolitionists in Rochester, NY, where Douglass lived at the time, and is buried — “What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July?” — is best known. But in the first portion he […] [Read More...]
June data starts out with a bright spot in manufacturing
June data starts out with a bright spot in manufacturing Earlier this week the last of the regional Fed Districts, Dallas, reported their manufacturing indexes for June. The overall picture has been a strong rebound: Regional Fed New Orders Indexes (*indicates report this week) Empire State up +41.8 to -0.6 Philly up +42.4 to +16.7 Richmond up +30 […] [Read More...]
Competency
Competency by Ken Melvin What is the first criteria when a Board of Directors goes looking for a new CEO? When the construction firm goes looking for a project manager? Of late, too often, US Politics seems to have a new standard for selecting officeholders. We have been, are, watching this horror of a Pandemic […] [Read More...]
Whack ’em and stack ’em.
SOURCE: Funny Economist – Randall Parker’s Completely Serious Macroeconomics Blog – Read entire story here.
June jobs report: the last hurrah of the wished-for “V-shaped” coronavirus recovery
June jobs report: the last hurrah of the wished-for “V-shaped” coronavirus recovery HEADLINES: 4,800,000 million jobs added. This makes up about 22% of the 22.1 million job losses in March and April. U3 unemployment rate improved 2.2% from 13.3% to 11.1%, compared with the January low of 3.5%. U6 underemployment rate improved 3.2% from 21.2% […] [Read More...]
Open thread July 3, 2020
Trump’s recent polling in retrospect
The betting markets and statistical models of the 2020 election suggest Trump is either likely or very likely to lose. I have no reason to doubt this, but it is interesting to look back at the history of his approval ratings. Trump’s approval trended down throughout his first year in office, with low points in […] [Read More...]
A New Covid Study
The Henry Ford Hospital Group finished its observational study using HCQ, HCQ+AZT, and AZT in the treatment of Covid 19. At 4:30 AM (can’t sleep sometimes), I read it and this is difficult reading while yawning. The stats are within the text of the limited study. I am not going to put them in this […] [Read More...]
Don’t Lose Your Head
Photo credit: David Seibolid || Oh dear, you lost your head! So we had a hard market day yesterday. Maybe COVID-19 will resurge in the USA. The great thing about the USA is that no one is ever truly in charge. Power is shared. Most of the time, that’s a good thing. I am not saying that it is time to buy, unless it is small trades. I bought 0.7% of stocks yesterday as the market fell 5%+. My aggregate cash position is around 20% of assets. After buying as the market fell in March, I was selling off stocks in May. Did I not believe the rally? Sure I did, but there are degrees of belief, and I kept selling bits as the market rose. … [Read More...]
Low paid jobs for British born workers
I have always had a problem with those who focus on the need to reduce low skilled immigration. Skilled migrants are OK, so the argument goes, because the UK needs their skills, but we don’t need low skilled immigrants because British workers can do those jobs. At a microeconomic level it makes sense, and in a world where there is widespread unskilled unemployment it may make sense. But in a high employment economy like the UK today, it makes no sense at the macro level. To see this, let’s think about a stylised example. Suppose there are a fixed number of jobs at each skill level. You will always need the same number of engineers, care workers and so on. To make things easy suppose 50% of … [Read More...]
Equivalence
Equivalence by Ken Melvin These two things are not the same. Giving a woman the right of choice doesn’t deny others that right of choice; makes no imposition on the rights of others. Denying a woman the right of choice imposes the will of others upon her. When is it lawful for some members of […] [Read More...]
Wildly Off Forecasts?
Wildly Off Forecasts? The macroeconomic forecasting business has become quite unhinged in the current situation, with existing models seeming to have their wheels coming off as old relationships simply do not hold and reported data seems unreliable and going in all sorts of directions. We have already seen this happen regarding forecasts that were made […] [Read More...]
What causes concern about immigration
It is part of folk lore among politicians and most social scientists that concern about immigration is governed by the number of immigrants. So how do we account for the decline in the relative salience of immigration since the EU referendum (source)? There are of course many explanations for this decline. Perhaps people now see the benefits of immigration after all the post-referendum talk of nursing and doctor shortages. A rather more straightforward explanation is that people think that by leaving the EU the immigration ‘problem’ is being solved (i.e immigration numbers are much reduced). If it is the latter, then their knowledge is incomplete. Immigration from the EU has declined dramatically, which is not surprising, but this has been partly offset by a significant … [Read More...]
Schmuck!
SOURCE: Funny Economist – Randall Parker’s Completely Serious Macroeconomics Blog – Read entire story here.
Schmuck too!
Who would say something like that except for some nasty old gink? [Read More...]
Who still thinks austerity was a good idea?
It is getting towards autumn in 2020, and the new regime of test/trace and isolate with occasional local lockdowns seems to be working. The economy has begun to recover from the 30% fall in GDP compared to a year earlier in the second quarter. But the recovery is not what the media is talking about. Instead they are focusing on the massive government budget deficit that has been a natural consequence of that fall in GDP and the huge government support effort. In response to media concern, the government announces an immediate 5 year programme of cutbacks to government spending, although the NHS will be “protected”. If you think that last sentence is unlikely to happen, I would agree. But this is pretty well what happened in the … [Read More...]
Oklahoma Expands Medicaid
Kind of a big deal because Oklahomans rejected Trunp’s Medicaid and Republican block grant-program which would be more vulnerable to cuts of Federal funding. It is unfortunate Oklahoma did not get on board with the ACA Medicaid expansion as 100% of the costs of the Medicaid expansion from 2014 – 2016 and 90% there after. […] [Read More...]
Guardian article on flooding
A very short post linking to my articlein the Guardian on flooding. Long time readers will probably remember that I have written about this before. I even naively thoughtat one point, after the floods at the end of 2013, that this would be Cameron’s Katrina. It wasn’t, and my naivety was about the UK media. That is why my Guardian article talks not just about a political failure of successive Conservative governments, but also a failure (with only the occasional exception) of the broadcast media. Some on the left might dismiss this as political bias in the broadcast media, but it is more complex than that. In the article I write“An obsession with breaking news has crowded out memory and background research. Flood victims ask why this keeps … [Read More...]
Fun with Bernie ….if there is such a thing with a Marxist mental midget…
What is scary is that he actually believes the Marxist filth that comes out of his pie hole. As Brett Stephens has said, the young people who support him are too young to remember what socialism did. The older folks who support him are too stupid to understand what it does.”Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” Winston ChurchillCount me out. [Read More...]
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