Counting The Costs: Another War Is Not What America Needed

Waste Of The Day: Medicare Paid For Wrong Organs Authored by Jeremy Portnoy via RealClearInvestigations, Medicare spent an estimated $380 million acquiring human organs that were either transplanted into patients without Medicare or never transplanted at all, according to a new Department of Health and Human Services inspector general audit. Key facts: Medicare reimburses hospitals for removing kidneys, hearts, lungs and other organs from donors after they die. Federal law says Medicare should only bear those costs when the organ is used in a Medicare-covered transplant. But decades-old Centers for Medicare & Medicaid...

Iran Counter-Blockade Bites As No Tankers Load At Kharg For 10th Day Earlier today, in response to news that the number of tankers anchored at Iran's Kharg Island oil terminal had hit a post-blockade peak, we wondered if this means that Iran is running out of tankers to store oil, i.e., Trump' blockade of the blockade is working. In any case, it certainly means that Iran is no longer able to sell any of the oil, depriving it of much needed oil export revenues which it has found itself forced to...

Euro Area Inflation Tops 3.0% For First Time Since 2023, Cementing ECB Rate Hike Euro Area inflation topped 3% for the first time since September 2023, further cementing expectations for a rate hike when the ECB meets next week.  Consumer prices rose 3.2% from a year ago in May, and up from 3% the previous month, in line expectations. But core inflation, which excludes volatile items like food and energy, jumped more than anticipated to 2.5% (technically 2.55%), while the closely watched services gauge jumped to 3.5%, the highest since last November, and non-energy...