Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1411.0 | 7.5 | 0.53% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2475.4 | 33.6 | 1.38% |
| Oil (WTI) | 96.28 | 0.9 | 0.96% |
| LIBOR | 0.408 | -0.002 | -0.37% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 81.08 | -0.156 | -0.19% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.64% | 0.05% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 192.7 | -0.2 |
Markets are higher this morning after the ECB maintained rates and the ADP Employment Change came in better than expected. The ADP number came in at 201k, which suggests the street estimates for nonfarm payrolls is too low. Initial Jobless claims were 365k, better than expected. Bonds are down a point, and MBS are down about 10 ticks.
Mario Draghi is discussing the ECB bond purchase program right now. It seems consistent with what had been leaked earlier – unlimited, fully sterilized purchases. It appears the plan requires that the governments need need to formally ask the ECB to conduct purchases of their debt. So, if there are strings attached that Spain or Italy do not like, nothing may happen at all.
Bob Woodward’s new book, The Price of Politics, gives insight into how the Obama Administration’s White House worked (or didn’t). It does not paint a rosy picture of the Obama White House.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Whenever I see a new Woodward book, I read between the lines to figure out who he is being the stenographer for this time. Colin Powell was the primary source for most of his books on the Bush Administration.
LikeLike
Sitting in medpac meeting. Entitlement spending in the next 25 years will total the size of total government spending over the past 40 years. Medicare population to Double by 2050. Worker to beneficiary ratio to fall for 3:1 to 2:1 by 2030.
LikeLike
As the nation’s leaders raced to avert a default that could have shattered the financial markets’ confidence and imperiled the world’s economy, Obama convened an urgent meeting with top congressional leaders in the White House. ”
So overwrought that it could have been written by a 14 year girl.
There was never, ever, ever any danger of default whatsoever. Even in the worst case scenarios, the Federal government could have easily paid it’s Treasury related obligations by doing such things as furloughing employees. Any default that could have occurred would have had to have been intentional on the part of the Obama administration (with the approval of Paul Ryan of course)
Like Woodstock, it will go down as a “seminal” event whose significance is only apparent to the media.
LikeLike
“No, Governor Romney, corporations are not people. People have hearts, they have kids, they get jobs, they get sick, they cry, they dance. They live, they love, and they die. And that matters. That matters because we don’t run this country for corporations, we run it for people.”
What complete dreck!
She didn’t seem to miind corporations when she made part of her fortune in buying foreclosed Oklahoma properties from corporations, with money borrowed from other corporations. Also I’m too lazy to do the research, but I somehow doubt in the multi-millionaire Warren family, that they’ve never incorporated for any of their various and sundry money making ventures.
First we had Paul Ryan Kerry who is now against everything he voted for and vice versa; now we have Elizabeth Warren Kerry who is against every way to make money that she has exploited in the past.
(should I mention that in the squirrely state of Massachusetts, they actually have a check off provision whereby residents can voluntarily pay 5.85% instead of the minimum 5.3%? regrettably Warren like Buffett and Harry Reid, thinks taxes are something that OTHER people should pay and somehow failed to pay the higher rate)
LikeLike
Boehner pissed off Obama. Obama pissed off Ryan. The whole thing sounds middle school.
the Federal government could have easily paid it’s Treasury related obligations by doing such things as furloughing employees.
Easy for you to say. Not so easy for a federally employed janitor with a mortgage to pay.
Eventually somebody still has to blink. It was a silly meaningless fight which still hasn’t been resolved. And won’t be until at least the lame duck session.
LikeLike
yello:
You can’t run a successful anything if the standard of measurment amounts to “if just one person gets hurt by it, it’s a bad thing”.
LikeLike
You can’t run a successful anything if the standard of measurment amounts to “if just one person gets hurt by it, it’s a bad thing”.
I don’t like everything Gov. Snyder has done here in Michigan. But he seems to have pretty ably demonstrated that when you propose serious cuts there will be a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth, but people will quickly forget about the cuts. Well…at least they will forget if the economy picks up. If I were Romney, I’d be mentioning Snyder a lot as an example of what can happen when a businessman brings his business judgment to government. Of course, Romney is probably more politician than businessman at this point.
LikeLike
Well, they may have needed to lay off more than one janitor. And I’m not sure about the numbers, but federal payroll is probably the smallest hit in a gummint shut-down. It’s all those Social Security checks which don’t go out either. Or all those contractors who can’t pay suppliers (and employees) because they didn’t get paid either. More than one ox would have gotten gored, particularly if it dragged on a week or two.
Newt ran that option and look where it got him. It all comes down to that Obama originally wanted a clean debt limit increase (like the ones he used to vote against) and the Republicans wanted spending cuts above and beyond what they had already agreed to. Egos got in the way and it snowballed from there. I think I just saved myself the twenty-five bucks on Woodward’s book.
LikeLike
I want to reprint this here, to make sure that I am reasonably on target in my assumptions
This is from Ezra’s column fact checking Obama’s 4 trillion deficit reduction plan:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/09/06/is-obamas-4-trillion-deficit-reduction-plan-for-real/#comments
“As for counting interest payments as a spending cut, I feel Kessler on this one. I think it’s a bit weird — particularly because a big chunk of those reduced interest payments are coming because Democrats are raising taxes. But note that Simpson-Bowles, Domenici-Rivlin, and the Ryan budget, and pretty much every other deficit-reduction plan does the same thing. And it’s not as if reduced interest payments aren’t an actual cut in future federal spending. Those payments cost real dollars. So, whatever you think of how they’re categorized, lowering them is deficit reduction.”
Unfortunately for all those plans, the payments won’t be lower at all, or at least not by anywhere near that much. A conservative estimate would be that the yield on Treasuries will triple over the next decade at a minimum which would take us all the way back to the long forgetten days of 2008!
Were we to experience truly good times,rates might quadruple back to the final Clinton years at around 6.25% on the 10 year.
Consider also, this is a BEST case scenario on Treauries. If the Fed gets inflation even slightly wrong we could easily go back to the EIGHT % that we were paying in 1992 at the beginning of the Clinton years.
Too bad all those feverish attacks and defenses fail to take into account that we are paying the lowest rates in recorded history, and simply cannot continue to do so.
Even the Congressional Research Service recognizes that our current projections are out of whack in this area:
“Because interest rates are currently so low, CBO recorded debt service payments of $187 billion
for FY2009, the lowest level in dollar terms since 2005, even though the debt rose by more than
$1.7 trillion that year. As discussed below, financing the deficit may become more costly once
economic conditions normalize. Even if interest rates return only to average levels in recent years,
the cost of debt service will rise significantly.CBO’s projections assume a relatively low interest
rate paid on government debt over the next 10 years, largely because the starting point for its projections is today’s historically low rates. Some commentators have questioned whether this
assumption is reasonable given the size of current and projected budget deficits. If investors
respond to large deficits by demanding above-average interest rates, the cost of debt service
would become large. CBO estimates that if interest rates rose to their average level from 1991 to
2000, the budget deficit would be an average of $100 billion higher per year over the next 10
years. If interest rates rose to their average level from 1981 to 1990, the budget deficit would be
an average of $500 billion higher per year over the next 10 years.22”
Click to access R40770.pdf
All those “savings” gone with the wind
LikeLike
I think the CRS even misses one point. It doesn’t HAVE to be failure to reduce the deficit that drives up interest rates. A reduced deficit and greater GDP growth and economic recovery to say nothing of a Europe out of crisis mode, would send money screamiing OUT of Treasuries and into other areas, driving up yields.
LikeLike
Krugman vs Krugman
vs
Somehow, the “depression” is ending even in the absence of a new stimulus program. I thought that Krugman considered that impossible. Certainly it shouldn’t have turned around in less than one year.
LikeLike
Somehow, the “depression” is ending even in the absence of a new stimulus program
More impressively, in yesterday’s article, the “depression” ended in 2009, but the earlier article said we were in a depression in 2011. I guess you could argue that the recovery began in 2009, but we were still in a depression at the end of 2011, but that argument seems weak at best.
LikeLike
An interesting article that uses the movie 2016 to discuss debate tactics and a shift from arguing about the political actions of a politician to arguing about who the politician is. My favorite lines:
LikeLike
ashot:
a shift from arguing about the political actions of a politician to arguing about who the politician is.
It works two ways. Obama would never have been elected in the first place if not for who he is. And the first lady’s endorsement of her husband the other night was largely about who he is and not what he does.
LikeLike
It works two ways.
That’s true. And both sides do that, too. A huge portion of the RNC was devoted to humanizing Romney. Mitt’s wife’s speech was all about who he is, too. Nearly every speech at both conventions contain some anecdote about the speaker’s parent’s or grandparents or uncle etc.
Anyway, I thought it was an interesting article.
LikeLike
jnc:
The book tour is over and thus so is the depression.
LikeLike
From last night, Chuck Schumer goes Bourne and thinks he’s Bernie Sanders when he wakes up:
“Mitt Romney’s plans would make things worse. We’ve tried trickle-down tax cuts for the wealthy and ‘anything goes’ for big corporations. We tried it under a president who billed himself as a ‘compassionate conservative.’ It didn’t work. Now we have Mitt Romney, calling himself a ‘severe conservative.’…Romney not only wants to make those tax cuts permanent, he wants to add more tax breaks for the wealthy that would make our deficit even bigger”
Hey Chuck, you’re actually a paid assasin working FOR the wealthy and the big corporations. Try to remember!
LikeLike
Your description of Schumer reminds me of the years TX had a junior senator, Ralph Yarborough, who was a liberal D. Except on oil industry votes.
Region beats all sometimes.
LikeLike
Obama would never have been elected in the first place if not for who he is.
It was largely about who he wasn’t. Dubya is still highly reviled.
LikeLike
yello:
It was largely about who he wasn’t. Dubya is still highly reviled.
He wasn’t running against Dubya (although he certainly did his best, successfully if you are any indication, to convince his supporters otherwise). He first had to beat Hillary, and then McCain, both of whom weren’t Dubya too. He certainly wouldn’t have beaten Hillary if not for his biography/race, and probably wouldn’t have beaten MCain.
BTW, just an FYI, he’s still not running against Dubya.
LikeLike
He certainly wouldn’t have beaten Hillary if not for his biography/race, and probably wouldn’t have beaten MCain.
I suppose an Obama victory in November will only reinforce that.
LikeLike
Did Scott pose that BHO gets more votes because he is black than he would were he white?
LikeLike
Mark- I’m not sure why else he would say “biography/race.”
*Late edit* An amazing game going on right now as Del Potro tries to stay in the 2nd set. Going on 14 minutes.
LikeLike
Djoko will wear you down.
LikeLike
That was an amazing set. I feel bad for Del Potro.
LikeLike
I think DP is wearing down.
LikeLike
mark:
Did Scott pose that BHO gets more votes because he is black than he would were he white?
Yes. Or, to be more precise, he did in 2008.
LikeLike
Yes. Or, to be more precise, he did in 2008.
Do you have evidence to support this contention? It is so wildly counter-intuitive that I would have to see detailed polling to believe anything like that.
LikeLike
mark:
I am posting from my phone, so I can’t link to anything at the moment. It is of course impossible to prove why someone voted the way they did or what influenced them. But for starters, the percentage of blacks who voted in 2008 soared by something like five or six percent over what it had been in previous elections. Something like 2 million more blacks voted in 2008 than in 2004. If we include
Latino voters, there were something on the order of 5 million additional voters. It seems highly likely to me that this surge in black voters in particular was due to Obama being the first ever black nominee for president.
Beyond that, I think there is great attraction to voters in being a part of something historic, as the election of the first ever black president clearly was, and that also added to his vote total. You don’t think the massive turnout for Obamas inauguration was due simply to him being an engaging speaker, do you?
LikeLike
Take a look at this, Scott.
Click to access RacialAnimusAndVotingSethStephensDavidowitz.pdf
I think the lost white votes more than offset increased black voter turnout.
Other metrics are de minimus. Liberals were going to vote for BHO in the general, anyway, although older white liberals were pretty strong for HRC. McC held 40% with Latinos, almost in GWB land, but no other R could do as well as either of those two. Chicano D leadership in TX was uniformly behind HRC and so were the D primary voters in the Rio Grande Valley and the western border counties [where the D primary is heavily Texana].
LikeLike
ashot:
I suppose an Obama victory in November will only reinforce that.
No. Not sure why it would.
LikeLike
My son, then 39, said “This will be a good election. The next President won’t be W.”
My three daughters all voted for BHO and ending the war in Iraq and BHO’s personality probably came up equally in conversation. My two youngest daughters were sure McC would die in office.
LikeLike
Why would we “go back” to the days of state mandated racial segregation if Mitt Romney wins the election?
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/316166/do-you-want-go-back-society-where-blacks-were-beaten-eliana-johnson
LikeLike
He certainly wouldn’t have beaten Hillary if not for his biography/race, and probably wouldn’t have beaten MCain.
That is discounting the rather large PUMA contingent that was supporting Hillary because she was a woman. I call offsetting demographics. Obama won the primaries because he was the more moderate candidate, particularly on health care.
And the Democrats could have nominated a drunken Klan Wizard and beaten McCain who was a dupe proxy for Dubya. The second coming of Ronald Reagan couldn’t have won that year for the Republicans.
LikeLike
McCain who was a dupe proxy for Dubya
No. And McC had a real constituency that was personal to him, and built over time. Not just anyone could have beaten him.
I do not know if you remember this, but GWB had great difficulty ever looking McC face-to-face.
I can list John McCain’s accomplishments in the US Senate and they were many, as of 2008. McC lost ground when he paused his campaign for the meeting with Paulson. He lost ground by saying the economy was basically sound as it was falling apart. And he lost ground with his moderate supporters by choosing SHP.
But to suggest a drunken Klan Wizard could have beaten him is, in QB’s overused word, risible.
LikeLike
Why would we “go back” to the days of state mandated racial segregation if Mitt Romney wins the election?
John Lewis is an authentic American hero. I was proud to vote for him in his first election for the House. I forgive him any rhetorical excess because he has lived his life with more courage than I could ever hope for.
LikeLike
But to suggest a drunken Klan Wizard could have beaten him is, in QB’s overused word, risible.
An exaggeration, but the Republicans had no hope of winning in 2008. The downward pull of Dubya was too much for any candidate to overcome. McCain was probably their best choice as he was the one Republican with the least public connection to Bush. However, I was disappointed with the rightward pandering he indulged in versus his 2000 straight talking reputation.
And the less we talk about his choice of running mate, the better.
LikeLike
Joe Biden is a helluva speaker when you watch him with the sound turned down.
LikeLike
Are we missing 100,000 math and science teachers today?
LikeLike
Ashot may know. Assuming there are 30 million kids in school that is one possible number. Do we rely on AFT and NEA for the answer?
There is a shortage in TX. http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9215925.htm
I don’t know how big.
Or are you asking a trick question about missing persons?
LikeLike
Ashot may know.
Is Mark accusing me of kidnapping 100,000 math and science teachers?
Mark- Obama is on at the moment. Maybe I’m just political speeched out after watching the RNC last week, but so far this speech is pretty meh.
LikeLike
The title of this speech should be
Yadda, yadda, yadda, . . . the world has ever known.
LikeLike
They better stop him before he talks about how he quaterbacked the Cowboys to victory last night.
LikeLike
Who is talking?
LikeLike
I was just wondering whether we’re adding 100,000 new teacher positions or we’re offering buyouts to existing ones!
LikeLike
She might become the next Steve Jobs except for the fact that Jobs didn’t go to college.
LikeLike
ashot:
He just told us “you did that” to his audience after 30 -35 minutes or so of saying “I did that”.
LikeLike
Humble finally made an appearance.
LikeLike
Humble finally made an appearance.
It was you who brought humble to Obama’s convention speech.
LikeLike
The auto worker who won a lottery give him hope?
LikeLike
Oye…the hazard of watching PBS coverage is that you get far too many comments about the confetti and the lack of baloons.
LikeLike
He did say that we did that, so take a bow yourself ash
LikeLike
Cardinal Dolan (R-NY Archdiocese) giving the final benediction …
“Abortion is wrong, homosexuality is wrong … ” What other code am I missing?
LikeLike
djoko wins
LikeLike
Mike – Did he give a homily?
I commented at PL early this morning that BHO could list his priorities for the next four years and explain what would happen to them if the Rs control Congress.
Perhaps he could help his party down ticket. Did he list his priorities? Did he point out that he needed a D HoR to get them?
Or did he perpetuate the myth [they all do] that POTUS is the Great Oz?
LikeLike
well both conventions are over and we still have no idea what happens on January 22nd.
LikeLike
Why does MSNBC employ shyster Al Sharpton? He’s not even good on air?
LikeLike
C-Span. PBS. Avoid 24/7 cable, Don Juan. It saps vital bodily fluids through the eyeballs.
LikeLike
Remember the Rolling Stone cover about Jim Morrison?
He’s hot
He’s sexy
and He’s dead.
It’s that way at both conventions about Simpson-Bowles
It’s hot
It’s sexy
and it’s dead.
LikeLike
second what Mark said, DJ. Only way I watched the conventions.
If anyone wants to seek out a video of Biden’s and Obama’s speeches tonight I’d be grateful. I was out to dinner with friends and missed both. Like Mark, I’m going to rely on the beneficence of “strangers”.
LikeLike
Here’s Obama’s speech
Here’s Biden’s speech:
LikeLike
Mark:
Did he give a homily?
It was more like a hectoring. “Protect life” (no abortion), “Follow the Scripture” (no gay marriage), and keep your noses out of Church business. Amen.
LikeLike
It is has been canon law for several years that these crimes must be reported. Where, previously, a Bishop could be seen to have been torn between his obligation to the law and his duty to foster forgiveness-repentance, now there is no possible conflict.
LikeLike
Thanks much for the links, ashot!
LikeLike
I think the lost white vote more than offset increased black voter turnout.
My gut reaction would be that Obama’s race won him as many votes as it lost him for voters for whom that was a factor. The Bradley Effect is alive and well.
I still hold that most of the celebrating from November 2008 to January 2009 was at least as much for the Bush Administration ending as it was for electing the first African-American president. Hope and Change are colorblind concepts.
LikeLike
This within a week or two of a Franciscan priest saying this:
Talk about blaming the victim. He also said this:
The level of cluelessness of the Catholic hierarchy is just stunning.
LikeLike
For @15 years in which the RC population of Austin nearly tripled to over 400K, Bishop McCarthy ran a clean ship. His counsel, the late Jack Darrouzet, advised him to always report priest offenders, and to cooperate with CPS and APD investigations. Further, he encouraged parishioners to report suspicious behaviors. The Diocese never hid anyone. It responded to its parishioners by holding both public information and private counseling sessions, and paid for independent shrinks and counselors. The openness accomplished three goals: there were few incidents, trusting parishioners, and no lawsuits.
McCarthy was generally a very liberal bishop, with a great sense of humor. He permitted Catholic schools to hire outside the faith, in order to allow them to compete for the best science, math, and foreign language teachers. When he retired, the first order of business for the new bishop was the firing of all the non-Catholic teachers. It marked a reversion to the pre-McCarthy days.
I sometimes had Saturday breakfast with Jack Darrouzet and Bishop McCarthy. I wish there were more like him.
LikeLike