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 | 1456.8 | 6.4 | 0.44% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2592.6 | 49.3 | 1.94% |
| Oil (WTI) | 99.66 | 1.3 | 1.37% |
| LIBOR | 0.385 | -0.004 | -0.90% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 78.9 | -0.366 | -0.46% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.82% | 0.10% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 193.7 | 0.3 |
Welcome to the world of QEU (QE Unlimited). Markets worldwide rocketed on the Fed’s decision and the rally continues this morning. Commodities have a bid, while bonds and down a point and MBS are flat, continuing the divergence that began on the announcement.
In economic data, the Consumer Price Index (which became officially irrelevant yesterday) came in at +.6% and retail sales data came in a little better than expected, though higher gas prices may have been driving that number. The dollar continued to weaken against the euro.
The Fed’s announcement had opposite effects on Treasuries and MBS. Treasuries sold off 2 points on the announcement, while MBS gained a point. While Treasuries did recoup some of their losses, MBS went out at the highs of the day. This puts the 30 year Fixed Best-Ex rate somewhere between 3 3/8% and 3 1/2%. The NY Fed has the particulars on the MBS purchases.
Former Fed Governor Kevin Warsh told CNBC that the Fed’s action reflects deep concerns that the economy is at stall speed or worse. He also noted that the iPhone 5 would have more of an effect on the economy than QE. Someone else made the same point, and took it further by saying if you believe that incremental consumer spending is good for the economy then you must support the New Deal II.
The FHFA is developing a new securitization platform as a way to let other lenders compete with Fan and Fred in the secondary market and to reduce the GSEs role in the mortgage markets overall.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
“Someone else made the same point, and took it further by saying if you believe that incremental consumer spending is good for the economy then you must support the New Deal II. ”
With the caveat that employment has to rise faster. Otherwise, all you have is New Deal 1, redux.
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What a glorious day to be a commodities investor!
(Kids, tell your parents, prices will rise before wages and employment)
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Just when does the hyperinflation begin so I know when to buy my wheelbarrows? I’ve been waiting for a good round of it to dilute my fixed rate mortgage, my credit card debt and my son’s college loans down to nothing. If I could get rid of those I could easily survive on my devalued salary.
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never hyperinflation, just good old fashioned incremental inflation.
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Core inflation was 0.1%, making gasoline and food responsible for about 80% of the jump. So, as long as you don’t eat or go anywhere, no problems.
BB
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Remember when the Republcan candidates said all those nasty things about Bernanke in the primaries?
They shouldn’t have made Ben mad.
You won’t like him when he’s mad!
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The Fed doesn’t believe you can have inflation without wage inflation. Tell that to the unemployed…
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blade:
Don’t watch the parade go by, join.
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Worth a read for those who haven’t seen it:
“How Neil Armstrong inspired a POW
By John McCain, Published: September 13”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/john-mccain-how-neil-armstrong-inspired-a-pow/2012/09/13/5bd707e2-fdc0-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html
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AFAIK, demand for gasoline worldwide is down and production of oil is up. Is this not so? Why is oil pushing $100?
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OT, and trivial:
The lawmakers’ richer halves
By Al Kamen, Published: September 13
What do the wealthiest members of Congress have in common with cast members of the Real Housewives franchise?
Lawmakers might not share the Housewives’ propensity for chardonnay-fueled catfights, but just like those Botoxed women of Bravo, they married well.
Specifically, into gobs of money.
Roll Call on Thursday published its annual list of the 50 richest members of Congress, and among those with the fattest bank accounts are plenty who got their money the old-fashioned way — by marrying into it. (And in case the sight of all those zeros was already making you cross-eyed, keep in mind that most of the lawmakers in question are far wealthier even than listed, since disclosure forms may not reveal the extent of their holdings and since Roll Call uses the minimums of the ranges they report.)
Take the very flushest, Rep. Mike McCaul. Most of the Texas Republican’s vast fortune — a minimum of $305.96 million — comes from his wife, Linda McCaul, whose family’s business is a little establishment called Clear Channel Communications. In fact, according to number-crunching Roll Call reporter Amanda Becker, the congressman’s net worth “jumped from at least $73.75 million in 2009 to at least $294 million in 2010” thanks to a generous “gift” from his in-laws.
Or Sen. John F. Kerry , the second most affluent, who has ketchup and a spouse to thank for his wealth, estimated to be at least $231.23 million. His wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, is the “widow of the late Sen. H. John Heinz III of the Heinz ketchup fortune,” Roll Call notes. Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s wife is the source of most of his $79.61 million, which puts him at No. 6 on the list. Cynthia Blumenthal is the daughter of a New York real estate mogul.
Some women on the list, too, enjoy the financial perks of marriage. Two prominent California Democrats, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (No. 9) and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (No. 13), have wealthy husbands. And a newcomer to the top 50, Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-Maine), gained admittance into the elite club (she’s No. 12) with her marriage to financier Donald Sussman.
Seems there might be something to that retro-sounding advice about it being just as easy to marry rich as it is to marry poor. Pass the chardonnay.
***
McCaul was my Congressman until redistricting. In the narrow sense of representing his CD he has been a failure, but given his wealth he will not get an R challenge and his old CD was R and his new CD will be, too.
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AFAIK, demand for gasoline worldwide is down and production of oil is up. Is this not so? Why is oil pushing $100?
Gasoline demand is seasonal – we are coming off the summer driving season, and the refineries are switching over to heating oil production.
The tension in ME may be playing a part as well, though the GSCI is up
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Brent has been rising since June on lower Iran output. It’s also been rising since last week’s Draghi/ECB announcement.
Finally, until the ECB cuts interest rates at the next meeting, the euro is rising and the dollar falling.
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Sequester report due out today.
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Loved this Reason piece on a Rolling Stone interview of Bob Dylan. Thought it was typical Dylan and, well, smart of him not to alienate a segment of his audience. It’s quintessential Dylan being Dylan though, here’s an example: “….I don’t know what I could have meant by that. You say things sometimes, you don’t know what the hell you mean….I’m not going to deny what I said, but I would have hoped that things would’ve changed. I certainly hope they have.”
http://reason.com/blog/2012/09/14/the-badgering-of-bob-dylan-or-tell-us-yo
My favorite Dylan Album you ask? Hard Rain for a live album and Blood on the Tracks for a Studio album.
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I’ve never had a Dylan album, although I used to like the few Dylan songs they’d play on the oldies station when I was a teenager. Thus, the not particularly high-quality paen to Dylan I and a friend penned back when I was but a wee 16 years old (both doing our sad Dylan impressions):
Hello, Bob Dylan!
Just providing it for full disclosure. I do not actually recommend listening to it.
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Niiiiiice!
This is my favorite tribute to Dylan from David Bowie.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPxnCNRm_nY
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The NYT endorses easy money to inflate a stock market bubble because it will trickle down:
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For all the civil libertarians out there, this should piss you off.
Warning!!! Ace of Spades link!!!! Dirty Language and Hilarious Comments Likely!!!! Warning!!!!
http://minx.cc/?post=332871
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Anybody know what the genesis of the phrase “terms of service” is?
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McWing-
Yuck…Avoiding government censorship by requesing the private actor to censor speech? This is really bothersome. I hope the media covers this.
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Ashot, that was my first thought, too – but suppose “terms of service” are published by the media outlet and include “no racial or religious insults” or some such. And suppose you are an ambassador in Arabland. And suppose you see the terms of service and yell to the State Dept. “Momma, can you at least ask them if this violates their terms of service?”
It could look less sinister than a request for censorship. Although it probably isn’t.
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It could look less sinister than a request for censorship
Right…it would be a request by the government to have a private actor enforce it’s own terms of service. Which if I’m being true to my side, I could try to defend. But if I’m being objective, I can’t defend this.
Here are the terms of service.
And the most relevant provision IMO:
•We encourage free speech and defend everyone’s right to express unpopular points of view. But we don’t permit hate speech (speech which attacks or demeans a group based on race or ethnic origin, religion, disability, gender, age, veteran status, and sexual orientation/gender identity).
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I saw that, troll. inconceivable.
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“I hope the media covers this.”
Ha! Hilarious. i’ll be sure to tip the waitress.
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http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0912/81224.html?hp=t1_3
politico has ignored the embargo on the sequester report. it’s due at 2:30
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jnc:
Yes, trickle down all the way. In fact if you read wonklblog this morning, you saw a lot of writers who should know better getting the fromula backwards
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We’re talking about the trailer still? YouTube already released a statement yesterday saying that it falls within their guidelines so they are not taking it down, but are temporarily restricting access in Libya and Egypt although the clip is widely available on the internet.
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My civil liberties threshold is lower than many here but I suspect that it will not be covered like Bush/Ari Fleischer’s “Chill Wind” was be covered. The question for those here is why? Why did/does Bushes supposed infringement on civil liberties get covered by the media (ad nauseam in my opinion) but Obama’s supposed infringements get a pass?
Serious question by the way.
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I’ll add that I think a McCain Administration would have done the same thing and a Romney Admin would also. This is one of those opportunistic snipes that campaigns and parties throw at eachother, like whenever the sitting President takes a vacation or Congress shortens the number of days a year they (snicker) “legislate.”
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I’ll add that I think a McCain Administration would have done the same thing and a Romney Admin would also.
Agreed.
This is one of those opportunistic snipes that campaigns
Agreed, but as your comment and my comment demonstrate, we hold our candidates to a bit of a higher standard. That is a good thing.
FWIW, i reject the concept of hate speech.
I haven’t seen the movie, but from what I know it seems like Exhibit A in the case against the concept of hate speech.
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The answer is obvious. President Obama’s party affiliation. See also Bagram vs Guantanamo.
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“But we don’t permit hate speech”
FWIW, i reject the concept of hate speech.
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The folly of treating these incidents as “law enforcement” issues:
Treating terrorism as an act of war instead of a criminal act was the one big thing that President George W. Bush got right. However, I’d argue that the actual closest historical analogy is actual piracy as practiced in the 17th & 18th centuries.
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“the sequestration would result in a 9.4 percent reduction in non-exempt defense discretionary funding and an 8.2 percent reduction in non-exempt nondefense discretionary funding. The sequestration would also impose cuts of 2.0 percent to Medicare, 7.6 percent to other non-exempt nondefense mandatory programs,
and 10.0 percent to non-exempt defense mandatory programs.”
Regarding Medicare, these cuts are in addition to anything in current law, like the doc fix issue or the ACA payment reductions
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I claim the copyright on the phrase Obama would have made an excellent Attorney General in the Bush adminstration.
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I reject the concept of hate speech, too, but YouTube is free to accept it.
From what Mike and Ashot have written, the Admin had no business pressuring Youtube. This was not comparable to an embedded journalist being ordered not to compromise troop movements, IMO.
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the Admin had no business pressuring Youtube
Not only that, but it seems completely unnecessary. According to the link, the way the system works is: 1) user flags a video; 2) youtube reviews the video for violation of the terms of service/community guidelines; and 3) youtube takes the video down or leaves it up.
It is inconceivable that nary a single user flagged this video for review.
This was not comparable to an embedded journalist being ordered not to compromise troop movements, IMO.
I agree. I would be interseted in NoVa and McWing’s view on that, though. At the very least, the embedded journalist scenario is a tougher call and easier to defend. This seems indefensible to me.
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“bannedagain5446, on September 14, 2012 at 12:46 pm said:
I claim the copyright on the phrase Obama would have made an excellent Attorney General in the Bush adminstration.”
As always I will reply with my retort that I would take John Ashcroft over Obama and Holder when it comes to protecting civil liberties.
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Ashcroft had principles that only got in the way.
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regarding the embeds. I think it’s fine to offer, and based on accepting the offer you agree to certain rules. but any self-respecting journalist would turn down the offer and assume the risks and refuse to run copy by the military first.
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I think military embeds should be subject to reasonable controls.
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you be the judge
There are many women in the financial industrywho are only now starting to get equivalent facetime on the networks with the men. However that’s not what I’m writing about.
when men make the transition from the occasional guest to regular on air, the makeup people basically run a comb through their hair and shave them, maybe a bit of eye makeup truth be told
However when the women go through the process, they get hair bleached or lightened, totally different cut, and much more dramatic makeup.
so for the women here, do you think it’s the network that is driving these dramatic changeovers, or the women themselves?
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In the words of the late Bob Ueker from the great Major League: “Juuuuust a bit outside.”
http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2012/09/14/FLASHBACK-Obama-The-Day-Im-Inaugurated-Muslim-Hostility-Will-Ease
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Wild Thing. You make my heart sing. You walk everything.
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george:
It was because walking across the Dead Sea didn’t go as planned.
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“I feel like a banker in this thing.”
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8.2 percent reduction in non-exempt nondefense discretionary funding
Looking forward to closing up my lab for a month when we run out of grant money. Staycations for everyone!
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mike
tax rates don’t get raised for anyone, and budget cuts go away along with a debt ceiling raise early this time
NOBODY is interested in deficit reducation AFTER an election, only in the runup to one.
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NOBODY is interested in deficit reducation AFTER an election, only in the runup to one.
Damn. I have a list of places I wanted to visit on my self-furlough.
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Another narrative bites the dust.
http://www.brookings.edu/about/projects/bpea/latest-conference/2012-fall-jensen
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Funny tweet by James Taranto.
@jamestaranto: If re-elected, I solemnly pledge to keep America safe by strictly enforcing YouTube’s Terms of Service.
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The British are a very weird people.
They spend literally hundreds of millions of dollars a year to to maintain the image that a goofball family of very ordinary people are somehow special and worthy of the expense.
So when somebody tries to make a few dollars off their national stupdity, by taking some topless pics of one of them, they go nuts over the “intrusion on their privacy”. If you want privacy, don’t stick a Hollywood prop type crown on your head and wear medals on your chest earned by some ancestor several hundred years dead!
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Just when I thought it couldn’t get worse. Now they’re trying to see if he violated his parole terms.
Serious question, is this any different than just arresting him for blasphemey? Anybody doubt that this man will be killed?
http://hotair.com/archives/2012/09/14/white-house-yes-we-asked-youtube-to-consider-removing-that-mohammed-mov
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Best line from George’s link: The message the State Department should be pushing right now is that America doesn’t meddle with what its citizens say and therefore bears no moral culpability for cultural insults.
I think, otoh, that a guy whose parole for bank fraud legitimately included no internet – no aliases without checking with his parole officer would have checked with his parole officer before using the internet and aliases, especially together. If he did ck w/ his parole officer, AOK. If not, this should automatically lead to an investigation of whether he is back to his old tricks – for example, did he finance this film through fraud; has he committed internet fraud in some other instance where he did not tell his parole officer, etc. When on parole for a major felony it is felony stupid to violate the parole, especially in a way that calls attention to oneself. Before you assume suppression as a motivation, think about the nature of this parole and the reason for it. Again, if he called his parole officer and said he wanted to make a movie under a pseudonym and spread it on the net and the parole officer said “just keep me informed, thank you” we have no problem here. Further, if this use of the internet/pseudonym was not reported by him, if investigation showed no-otherwise-criminal use of pseudonyms or the internet, his parole might not be revoked, at least in Travis County, Texas. A stern warning about cking with the parole officer and a reminder of how easy that is would issue. But it could be revoked, obviously, and in some jurisdictions, where the prisons are empty, parole is revoked for non-otherwise-criminal violations, fairly routinely, especially for using the instrumentalities of your previous crime or associating with the other parolees who were your co-conspirators.
Assuming even a monthly ck in with the parole officer, there should be a mention of the internet movie/pseudonym early on. If so, and the parole officer made a note of it as he should have, there will be no revocation move within the parole system itself. It will just stop at his parole officer.
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Fair enough Mark, but if he had made an anti-Christian movie would he have been pulled in? If not, then don’t we have de facto blasphemy laws?
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George, running on reported facts, not investigated allegations, I think it makes no difference what the film was about if internet/pseudonym is a parole violation.
What we do know is that the parole officer would never know of internet/pseudonym violation if someone else did not report it, b/c parole officers are busy and don’t micromanage parolees. They generally act on police reports or complaints from lawyers in my experience. So if the lawyer for the insulted church, sect, synagogue, mosque, restaurant, whatever, sees that the guy on the net is someone he knows cannot use the net without permission from his PO the lawyer reports him. I’ve got one now where the subcontractor, a drunk, walked off with $6k of materials on the job which we will never get back, but b/c he is on parole for felony DWI my contractor wants me to turn him in for being drunk on the job and driving drunk away from it, which we can prove.
Life in the city…
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I get it Mark, rule of law and all that. Still, it seems uncomfortable to do this as a reaction to the (perpetual) Muslim outrage. I’m at a bit of a loss here and I don’t think a Romney admin would have behaved much differently. The message we’re sending though is that if you offend Islam, and you get violent, the US will capitulate and fall all over themselves apologizing. Should Clinton have investigated Maplethorpe for PissChrist? What about the Klan’s anti-Catholic beliefs and propaganda? Should the Federal government send apologies to the Pope? I get that those in power are, in good faith, trying to protect American lives and the lives of others, I just think this is the exact wrong thing to do because to react (by the government) to the free speach of others is to legitimize the view that it’s the government’s business to influence (if not control) the speach of it’s citizens rather than encourage more of it. Does that make sense? What we should tell the world is to use the power of free speach to counter ideas you don’t like and to accept the right of others to be wrong. That’s the heart of liberty that we’re losing I think, the freedom to be wrong and make mistakes.
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