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 | 1407.0 | -1.3 | -0.09% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2598.5 | 6.4 | 0.25% |
| Oil (WTI) | 87.52 | -0.4 | -0.41% |
| LIBOR | 0.311 | 0.000 | 0.00% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 79.76 | -0.015 | -0.02% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.58% | -0.01% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 191 | -0.2 |
Markets are flattish this morning as Washington continues to grind to some sort of agreement on the fiscal cliff. Initial Jobless Claims fell to 370k. The ECB kept rates at .75% and cut their 2013 GDP forecast to a range of -.9% to .3%. S&P lowered Greece’s bond rating to “selective default.” Bonds are up 1/4 while MBS are flat.
FHFA Acting Chairman Ed DeMarco will be speaking at SIFMA at 1:00 pm. HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan will head to the Hill today to talk about the sorry state of the FHA.
More Republicans are showing openness to increasing rates on the rich in exchange for entitlement spending cuts. So far, the President has shown little interest in cutting any spending aside from defense. One possibility under discussion involves splitting the difference between 35% and 39.6% on the top rate. That would allow both parties to claim victory.
Challenger and Gray reported job cuts increased 34% in November to 57,000. This was the second-highest month of the year. About a third of the announcements come from the Hostess bankruptcy. Of course December already has 11,000 cuts in the bag as well, courtesy of Citi. Wall Street has shed 300,000 jobs in the last two years, and more are on the way if revenues don’t start increasing.
The NY Department of Financial Services has ordered Ocwen to hire a monitor to ensure compliance with its agreement with the state. The state found instances where Ocwen did not provide a single point of contact to borrowers and did not send a 90-day notice before instituting foreclosure proceedings.
Is the overseas cheap labor arbitrage coming to an end? Apple announced that it will bring some production back to the US from China. It is a nominal amount – $100 million – and it might just be a symbolic move after the Foxconn PR disaster. The compay has $121B of cash on its balance sheet.
Citi is now advising clients against putting money with Stevie Cohen. SAC spin-off Diamondback is shutting down.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Axing 11,000 just before Christmas is positively Dickensian. I hope these people have gift receipts for all the Skyland Giants their kids aren’t going to get now.
What is the silver lining in all this? Are net jobs still going up? I do not necessarily see the shrinking of the bloated finance sector as a bad thing.
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The finance sector has not been bloated since 2009
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Probably not, but Citibank thinks they’ve found some dead wood. 11,000 people is an auto plant or a steel mill or more.
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I think the financial sector realizes that things are not going to get much better next year.
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As shrink is fond of noting, health care is a growth biz. My youngest, the former chemist now finishing pharmacy school, has accepted a job offer that puts her in metropolitan Austin on a pharmacy management track at six figures to start.
We are happy for her. Also, I get to help her trade her Civic for a new car, come June. Surprisingly, she no longer wants a BMW and is thinking Accord 4 door. She really liked the reliability and generally solid and quick feel of her Civic. That is how a mfr builds brand loyalty – the entry level car builds trust and affection.
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It sounds like things are not going to get much better for the financial sector for a while.
From Bloomberg:
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I saw that. The thing is, everyone is already subject to Basel III requirements, so I don’t see what is actually changing,
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I don’t completely understand it, but it sounds like the new Fed (or other local) capital requirements might force global banks to maintain levels above Basel III.
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If so, that is huge. I have not heard of anyone suggesting we have more stringent capital requirements than Basel III.
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Worth noting:
“Special Report: Amazon’s billion-dollar tax shield”
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/12/06/us-tax-amazon-idUSBRE8B50AR20121206
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Mark, she’s a Pharm D?
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PharmD. May 2013.
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This really sux:
In fact, Roberts and his Kansas colleague Jerry Moran voted “no” after personally promising Dole they would support the treaty.
Before the vote was to be taken, Dole rolled in a wheelchair onto the Senate floor, where, as Roll Call’s Meredith Shiner writes:
One by one, Senators of both parties approached [Dole], with former colleagues gently resting their hands on his shoulder or reaching out to his left hand. … Then, one by one, after Dole was wheeled off the floor, most Republicans voted against the measure. Many members did not register their “nay” votes verbally, instead whispering their opposition directly to the clerk or gesturing their hands from their chairs.
These senators shook Dole’s good hand, looked him in the eye and, once he left the floor, turned their backs on him, on his fellow disabled veterans and on disabled people throughout the world. They did not stand tall and proud against the treaty. No, these senators “whispered their opposition” or “gestured from their chairs.” (Remember that senators, no strangers to C-Span, know that the network’s microphones can pick up their votes if they wish to be heard.)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-partisan/wp/2012/12/06/senate-republicans-profiles-in-moral-cowardice/
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Citi’s Matt King’s “most depressing slide”.
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Congrats to your daughter Mark. Our chemist begins her six figure job on Jan. 7th in Denver. She’s in Houston tonight and Austin manana. She’s keeping her ’02 Mitsubishi until it dies or her loans are paid off………………….hahahaha.
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btw, Mark, I’ve loved every Honda I’ve ever owned; my current one is a 2001 CRV that I want to get rid of mainly because it’s much bigger than I need anymore, but it’s still ticking like a Timex.
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Liam linked to this
over on PL. I believe that this is half of the Panetta-Burns proposal.
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James Downie says it better than I could have. This was cowardice, pure and simple.
These senators shook Dole’s good hand, looked him in the eye and, once he left the floor, turned their backs on him, on his fellow disabled veterans and on disabled people throughout the world. They did not stand tall and proud against the treaty. No, these senators “whispered their opposition” or “gestured from their chairs.” (Remember that senators, no strangers to C-Span, know that the network’s microphones can pick up their votes if they wish to be heard.)
These were not the actions of men and women who were proud of their vote. These senators knew, privately, that their vote was wrong. And yet, pathetically, they did not have the courage or the decency to say so. It was nothing less than moral cowardice, a failure that should shame them for the rest of their lives.
And, NoVA, I have to say that I would also take umbrage at a “present” vote. Sometimes a gesture is worth making, even if it is non-binding.
Mark added: It was good enough to post twice, I guess…see my use of the same link at 5:53.
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I voted Republican for over 20 years but I can’t any more. What they did to disgrace Bob Dole and embarrass the United States is but one example why.
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D’oh! Corked by Mark. . . I guess I was so pissed when I read it on HHR that I didn’t even see that you’d already posted it.
yello: I was never a regular Republican voter, but I did vote for R’s every once in a while. . . the nail in the coffin for me was Newt Gingrich’s Speakership. The have been going downhill as a Party ever since AFAIC.
And I wish they’d stop, because we need a viable second party, and the Tea Party is not going to be it.
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I still consider “parties” to be organized first for the purpose of gaining and retaining office, and I suppose both YJ and Kelley do, too. All local politics around me are D, but all regional and state politics around me are R. Regionally and statewide, I am usually looking to back the R I consider to be the best candidate. This is especially true for State School Board, where I always back the R who is not a creationist, and Texas Supreme Court, where I back the Bar choice. Further, some Rs, like our Land Commissioner, are just too damned good to let go, and others, like KBH, I know personally and can approach. Locally, I used to know who was honest and who wasn’t, and that trumped party every time.
As I age and become far less involved in politics, the folks I know well personally in public office are fewer and further between. Since I have not gone to court in 4 years, come January, I already do not know who is honest and who isn’t. I find myself to be a low information voter for the first time in my life. I used to know with some certainty who the folks behind the curtain were and I did not have to rely on public perceptions, all the way up to the state level. Now I find myself listening to the talking points of Rs and of Ds and not liking a lot of it.
With KBH replaced by Cruz, I have one less R I would vote for. I have voted for Cornyn but would vote for a D against him if I had reason to think s/he was honest and fairly smart. I voted for GWB for gov in ’98 but not for POTUS – I did not think he was “up” for the job. But I really did think he would be an OK caretaker and peacetime POTUS, b/c he had worked well with a D Lege in TX, and he had been a cautious spender during the oil bust of the late 90s.
I supported McC in 2000 and then voted for Gore. That was a hold my nose vote, btw, based on Gore having been a VP who had been included in the decision matrix of the Clinton Admin, while I thought of him as a limited sort of person.
This vote on the Handicapped Treaty is an example of what is now eating the guts of the R Party, IMO. It isn’t some philosophy I can understand as conservative that drove that vote. It was a campaign of misinformation and lies and delusions among fundamentalist voters whose fringy candidates like Santorum and Bachmann now have incredible audiences. Both Bush ex-prezzes and Dole supported the Treaty.
There is plenty of D stuff I disagree with. I could make a list. I just don’t think I can find a national issue on which the Ds are driven by delusion like the fundies are doing to the Rs.
Think of it this way: Brent is someone I agree with more often than not. He is able to point out the utter foolishness of particular D shibboleths. He is in no way deluded or operating from a religious fundamentalist viewpoint. He is someone I would vote for. There are still Rs like Brent, even in public office. Our Land Commissioner, for one. My R leaning friends are like Brent, if not as smart or well versed in finance. I would vote for them. I have voted for “them”. So for an indie like me, it is the rise of fundamentalism and its role in the R body of politics that seems to be a cancer.
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In their quest to define unexplainable reasons why they’re opposing anything and everything Obama/Liberal they’ve been scraping the bottom of the barrel of reasons. Wasn’t this treaty originally generated by Republicans Bush/Bush?
If Republicans would stick to the economics of governance and accept their role as the brakes on spending and defenders of business, especially small (not the big C’s), and the middle class rather than attacking another segment of the population (the disabled) they might have more success in the legislative arena on a National level. I admit to voting for Anderson and Perot, but I’ve never voted for a Republican except on a local level and that hasn’t happened in years.
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So for an indie like me, it is the rise of fundamentalism and its role in the R body of politics that seems to be a cancer.
This is known as hitting the nail on the head. lms and I (and probably okie, although I can’t remember for sure) have jokingly advocated for you running for office, Mark. And I have advocated for Brent doing so. But the current Republican party makes it impossible for either of you to do it.
And I have to point out that lms and all of us “girls” tried to point out that the women were going to flock from the R party in droves in this election and several conservatives said we were high. I think we’ve been vindicated.
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Thanks Mark. Well said and I appreciate understanding a little more about your political leanings.
We are Independents here as well but except for our oldest daughter I am the most liberal/progressive. I’ve enjoyed watching the kids sprout their political wings and form their governing ideologies. They’re all very bright and accomplished as well as independent young adults. I mention this because I think at least two of them would probably vote conservative if given the candidate or the party.
When I mentioned here back in September that the R party was alienating swaths of the electorate with their strange behavior and comments on issues from abortion/rape/contraception, LGBT rights, immigration, education/creationism etc. I meant it as a warning not as a sense of gratification on my part.
Our children and most of their friends spent a lot of time during the election process ridiculing Republicans………………….I don’t think that’s what the party wants. If they have truly good governing ideas they’re being hidden beneath a layer of the inane. I find no pleasure in that.
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That’s not right what they did to Dole (who I met on a few occasions*). but i still wouldn’t have voted for it. probably more as a protest against the UN in general than this specifically.
*I used to work in the Watergate complex next to where he lived. I worked an early shift that started around 6 and he’d see us in the window when his drivers picked him up. He had donuts and coffee sent up one morning had invited us over for a before the doors opened for a book signing. so i have an autographed copy of
and
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Why are you against the UN? Absolutely no snark intended, I just don’t understand this viewpoint, since I see it as a benign, if not toothless, organzation.
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“markinaustin, on December 6, 2012 at 4:42 pm said:
PharmD. May 2013.”
I have some pretty good friends who work for Johnson & Johnson and Novo Nordisk if she needs help with the job hunt, but I expect she won’t have a problem.
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“Michigoose, on December 7, 2012 at 7:44 am said:
Why are you against the UN? Absolutely no snark intended, I just don’t understand this viewpoint, since I see it as a benign, if not toothless, organization.”
Sovereignty rests at the national, not super national level. There’s no democratic accountability to the UN. It should have no role in domestic legislation.
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“benign, if not toothless, organzation.”
that’s part of it. why be a part of something that’s purpose seems to issuing stern warnings? i’d rather we go it alone to the extent possible.
i think the UN’s first goal is the promotion of itself. and that’s not something we should be involved in.
and when there’s an actual humanitarian crisis? Syria? nothing. it’s on the US to do something or not. and we don’t need to be a member of the UN to do that.
so as a forum for nations to meet? fine. issuing policies and directives and goals. pass.
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to add on what jnc said, i’m not a conspiracy theory about it, but i’m not inclined to care what the international community has to say our about domestic affairs. . what right do they have to say anything about it? none whatsoever.
from the UN declaration of human rights. Article 26.
(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.
Well, school attendance is not compulsory in Virginia. not really anyway. http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/thousands-of-virginia-students-arent-required-to-get-an-education/2012/09/10/144fb9f0-fb54-11e1-b153-218509a954e1_story.html
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