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 | 1449.8 | -5.7 | -0.39% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2501.7 | -29.5 | -1.16% |
| Oil (WTI) | 88.55 | -1.3 | -1.48% |
| LIBOR | 0.35 | -0.001 | -0.28% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 79.62 | 0.281 | 0.35% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.74% | 0.00% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 194.6 | 0.3 |
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. There is no economic data this morning and the bond market is closed for Columbus Day. Alcoa kicks off the earnings season tomorrow.
Treasury and HUD released their monthly Housing Scorecard, which shows that the number of underwater homeowners fell from 12.1 million in Q411 to 10.8 million in Q212. The report doesn’t really delve into what caused the drop – was driven by home appreciation, or was it driven by foreclosures and short sales? Most of the report focuses on the Administration’s efforts regarding aid to distressed borrowers.
Bob Schiller has an interesting article on the psychology of the housing market during the bubble years and now. He makes an interesting observation – “In 2004, there was little about the economic climate that would explain why a housing peak should be coming soon. The world was widely believed to be slowly emerging from the early-2000s recession, which had been associated with the bursting of the stock market bubble of the 1990s. The stock market was just starting to recover. It seemed a time of healing.” The real estate market will surely recover, and while we are breathing a sigh of relief, some other bubble may be forming. That is the problem when you have a Federal Reserve which keeps trying to put the wealth-effect genie back in the bottle.
The latest “selling you the Brooklyn Bridge” scam – advertising REO as rentals. Pretty brazen stuff.
Commercial real estate pricing has almost returned to its 2007 peak.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Story making the rounds this morning — and something I admittedly overlooked — regarding the insurance coverage for the kids on the parents plan up to age 26 or even a spouse. That’s only good if you’re on employer-sponsored coverage. What happens when you sign up for Medicare at 65? You kid and/or spouse is now uninsured. They really, really screwed up trying to build on the employer-based system.
http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2012/October/08/Medicare-decision-retirement.aspx
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Nova – until 2008, we were insured on the ABA group policy [not an employer plan] underwritten by United Health. When I went on Medicare, and purchased Advantage through Scott&White, Rosanne was permitted to stay on the ABA group policy as primary [no, she is not a lawyer]. Is that being affected or changed?
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Mark — that’s a good question and I don’t know. I’ll check for you. might take a day or so. I haven’t looked into how association plans are addressed in the regs.
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NoVA – thanx.
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Any numbers on how many people are affected by the Medicare issue you identified?
Also, presumably the exchanges will address that after 2014?
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jnc — you mean the number of people who would be dumped onto the exchanges b/c a spouse/parent enrolled in Medicare?
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Yes. They will be eligible for subsidies, the pre-existing conditions, etc.
Doesn’t sound like the end of the world.
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I am concerned that Fed policy will lead to another real estate bubble. This may be an Austin only view, but prices are now on a fast uptick here.
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No, but that’s coming out of their pockets and not the parent. If you’re covered under a large employer group plan, there’s no subsidy.
looks like about 3 million kids are enrolled this way, so you are probably right that it’s not too big of a deal.
http://facts.kff.org/chart.aspx?ch=2843
don’t know about the spouses — that could be a bigger problem.
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“markinaustin, on October 8, 2012 at 9:37 am said:
I am concerned that Fed policy will lead to another real estate bubble.”
You are wise to be concerned, as that is the actual goal of the policy, to wit to re-inflate housing prices and thus avoid any write down of the bad debt on the banks books.
It’s the end game of “Pretend and Extend”, paper over the losses so no one has to realize them.
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Good post by Ta-Nehisi Coates on the debates:
“A Limited and Self-Serving Defense of Political Punditry
By Ta-Nehisi Coates
Oct 8 2012, 11:00 AM ET 40”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/10/a-limited-and-self-serving-defense-of-political-punditry/263338/
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Austin may be able to support real estate inflation that Vegas might not. The price changes aren’t as critical as the relationship between prices & incomes. If Austin is continuing to enjoy growth & wages are rising with demand for workers, rising housing costs can be healthy.
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Naive it may be, but I’d like to think most kids at 26 will be employed & responsible for their own health, rather than relying on parents. Perhaps the recession is making that component of the ACA more prominent than it otherwise would be.
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It will have to be decided by the courts, but ACA, as written, does not allow for Fed subsidies in states that do not set up exchanges.
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“employed & responsible for their own health”
actually, they can have access to employer-sponsored coverage and opt to stay on their parent’s plan. and the plans are required to take them, unless they are a “grandfathered” plan. but that exception expires in 2014.
they can even be married and not financially dependent and enroll on a parent’s plan.
http://www.healthcare.gov/law/features/choices/young-adult-coverage/index.html
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Troll — that’s what you get for reading the law. solution — don’t read it.
[Cato has been doing the work on that theory. in looking at the legislative history, it looks like the Sen Ds did this intentionally.]
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OT, a couple of science-y links.
SpaceX sends a full payload up to the ISS. They are developing the Dragon to be able to transport astronauts, so our dependence on the Russian space agency may be shorter than previously thought.
The Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine goes to Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka for figuring out that somatic cell nuclear transfer and expression of only 4 proteins, respectively, are sufficient to induce near-totipotency in normal cells (i.e., make pluripotent stem cells).
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Good piece by Ezra on the debate one week later:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/wp/2012/10/08/reading-the-debate/
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Mike:
Yep, a good day for science! 🙂
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Michi:
Every day is a good day for science!
A new black hole discovered.
Curiosity takes a scoop full of Mars.
States are making it harder to opt out of childhood vaccinations.
USF researcher Tom Unnasch shows that Eastern Equine Encephalitis virus can overwinter in cottonmouth snakes.
Nobel Prize in Physics tomorrow, followed by Chemistry on Wednesday.
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Naive it may be, but I’d like to think most kids at 26 will be employed & responsible for their own health, rather than relying on parents.
Friends of mine have a 24 year-old with a full time contract (no benefits) job with the state government while working on a masters part time. She keeps getting strung along for a ‘real’ job based on state budgeting. That scenario is far more common than you would think.
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has everyone seen the OSU marching band: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAzzbrFgcUw&feature=player_embedded
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Another must read link:
http://www.arktimes.com/ArkansasBlog/archives/2012/10/08/republican-candidate-fuqua-endorses-death-penalty-for-rebellious-children
NoVA – the horse was to cool.
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markinaustin,
Fuqua may be onto something. I’ve long been a believer that abortions should be legal through the 57th trimester. He and I just differ on the first two or three.
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Saturday Night Live was on fire this week with their political coverage. The Winners and Losers segment on Weekend Update was spot on.
But the best bit was a MSNBC parody with pitch perfect impersonations of Maddow, Matthews, and Sharpton.
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The MSNBC parody is one of the best things I’ve seen on SNL in a while.
“You see Denver Colorado is a mile high. Now there is no way to know for sure how many feet that is, but it could be upwards of a million.”
Two of my favorite classic ones:
http://www.nbc.com/saturday-night-live/video/bush-clinton-perot-debate-cold-opening/1357830
&
http://snltranscripts.jt.org/87/87kdebate.phtml
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I forgot about that 3 am phone call bit from that sketch.
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