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 | 1550.2 | 3.4 | 0.22% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2696.2 | -9.3 | -0.34% |
| Oil (WTI) | 93.9 | 0.2 | 0.17% |
| LIBOR | 0.282 | 0.002 | 0.71% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 82.66 | -0.032 | -0.04% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 1.94% | -0.02% | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 192.6 | -0.2 |
Markets are firmer this morning in spite of the continuing problems in Cyprus. The FOMC meeting starts today, with the rate decision expected tomorrow. The market will be focusing on the Fed’s body language regarding the strength of the recovery and the end of QE. Bonds and MBS are up on the flight to quality trade.
Housing starts climbed to a 917,000 annual rate in February. Muti-fam starts continue to be in the 36% – 37% range as builders feed the red-hot rental market. Housing starts are still running at about 60% of historic levels (about 1.5MM units) going back to the late 50s. For the past 10 years, we have averaged 1.3 million units a year, which includes the meat of the housing bubble and the bust. We have been underbuilding for some time now.
The fact that we have underbuilt for so long partially explains why the rental market is so hot. This demand was masked for quite some time due to the recession as household formation numbers plummeted.
Many would-be first time homebuyers graduated college and returned to their parents’ house after an unsuccessful job search. Others moved in with roommates to minimize costs. That drop in household formations does not represent a demographic shift, it represents a temporary economic phenomenon. It also means there is a lot of pent-up demand that is going to be released as the economy recovers. While a lot of that will go into rentals, the first time homebuyer (creditors willing of course) is about to return to the housing market and that will allow the move-up buyer to sell. This has been one of the biggest sticking points for the market – a lack of first-time homebuyers.
So, with this economic backdrop, why did the homebuilders report a drop in confidence last month? The National Association of Home Builders / Wells Fargo Housing Market Index of builder sentiment had been on a tear since early 2012 as the homebuilders began sticking their heads above the parapet. The problem is not demand for new homes; it is problems in the the supply chain, along with rising costs for materials and labor. In an earlier post, I talked about how the shortage of construction workers was making lives difficult for homebuilders. This is reflected in the builder sentiment survey. They also mention the gripe everyone else is making – appraisals – and a tough credit market for borrowers who don’t fit in the GSE / GNMA box.
Bottom line: if you have made a bit of dosh trading the homeboys or the XHB, it might be time to start ringing the register….
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
She obviously does not think much of her constituents if she thinks that, if given half a chance, they’ll hit the bong and buy a Glock.
http://reason.com/blog/2013/03/19/elizabeth-warren-attacks-republican-for
Do people really want to be nanny’d like this? Serious question.
LikeLike
Good sequester/CR update:
LikeLike
This easily beats any craziness associated with the Tea Party:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/moorish-american-national-charged-with-trying-to-take-mansion/2013/03/18/b6d4524c-6ece-11e2-aa58-243de81040ba_story.html
LikeLike
Who could possibly have predicted this shocking turn of events?
Dodd-Frank Act derivatives rules are failing to give regulators a full picture of the swaps market and wouldn’t help them detect a loss similar to JPMorgan Chase & Co.’s London Whale trades, according to Commodity Futures Trading Commission member Scott O’Malia.
Swap-trade data the agency has been receiving since the end of last year from repositories including the Depository Trust and Clearing Corp. is inadequate to identify large positions and have overwhelmed government computer systems, O’Malia said in a speech prepared for a Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association conference in Phoenix.
(snip)
Different swap dealers and trading counter-parties are using their own reporting formats because the government failed to specify standards, O’Malia said.
“It means that for each category of swap identified by the 70-plus reporting swap dealers, those swaps will be reported in 70-plus different data formats because each swap dealer has its own proprietary data format it uses in its internal systems,” he said. “The permutations of data language are staggering. Doesn’t that sound like a reporting nightmare?”
The CFTC’s computer systems are failing to handle the incoming data. “None of our computer programs load this data without crashing,” O’Malia said.
Heh.
LikeLike
“they’ll hit the bong and buy a Glock”
what’s that bumper sticker. “ATF …should be a convenience store and not a government agency.”
LikeLike
jnc:
Looks like I need to move to your neck of the woods and become a Moorish National.
LikeLike
Note that the guy ended up in jail.
LikeLike
Eh, I’d count on one of you guys to bail me out.
LikeLike
Maybe DiFi, now that she’s done telling us what guns we’re allowed to have, will tell us what stories we’re allowed to write (and read.)
http://www.volokh.com/2013/03/18/philadelphia-mayor-suggests-magazine-article-on-race-relations-isnt-protected-by-the-first-amendment/
LikeLike
McWing:
Taranto wrote about that yesterday as well. He sagely pointed out that New York City can no longer lay claim to the most ridiculous mayor in the nation.
LikeLike
More on Cyprus. This makes that case that “tax” on deposits is basically the end of deposit insurance.
“But in showing us what they’ll do to an unsympathetic target, Europe’s leaders are showing us what they would like to do everywhere: dig themselves and the crony banks out of a tight spot through the mass confiscation of wealth. It’s the ultimate bailout plan: they just take whatever they need.
And there is more to it than that. This is confiscation, but it a particular kind of confiscation with particular implications. It is the end of deposit insurance. Depositors, particularly small depositors, are supposed to have an ironclad guarantee that their money will always be there, no matter what—that they won’t wake up one Monday morning to find that 6.75% of it is gone.”
Read more: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2013/03/19/cyprus_and_the_death_of_deposit_insurance_117513.html#ixzz2O5OCUL2Q
Follow us: @RCP_Articles on Twitter
LikeLike
Goose – Given this exchange earlier today on the Plum Line, I wouldn’t count on it.
YellowjktWalmart is a free rider on our social services safety net.
novahockeythen cut the net.
∂ß
LikeLike
FB:
Goose – Given this exchange earlier today on the Plum Line, I wouldn’t count on it.
Why is it that some people simply cannot fathom the coexistence of opposition to the welfare state along with a personally generous and compassionate spirit? The idea that nova’s political posture towards government “safety net” policies has any relevance whatsoever to whether or not he would come to Mich’s assistance should she find herself in a jam is just utterly baffling.
LikeLike
BTW, yello, I am curious…are the individuals who are the direct recipients of the benefits provided by the so-called social services safety net “free riders”?
LikeLike
i don’t see how raising the wages of the employees addresses the concern that they are poor. they’re working an unskilled MW job. it’s not supposed to be a career. it’s supposed to be a starting point.
LikeLike
part of the reason i am the way I am is that i’m sick of seeing how gov “compassion” plays out. warehoused, addicted to drugs, and forgotten. whel pols get on TV and talk about how compassionate they are, i think “bull fucking shit”
and then, somebody want to do something about it, and it’s fill out schedule 6, you can clean up that crack den in 6 to 8 weeks, provided the you don’t disturb the local wildlife, ie rats.
LikeLike
nova;
I am with you.
LikeLike
I see no contradiction, so that puts it in the fathomable range. I can also see someone being personally selfish while strongly supportive of a welfare state (disputing the pejorative). Indeed, both notions are entirely consistent. The other two halves of this particular square are also quite well populated, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see some kind of correlation.
I would further note it was meant as an amusing coincidence, reading Goose’s comment and the PL exchange. I should have added a bit of context in that I wasn’t assuming it was unique to Goose needing bail money. As Brian, Mark and Mike are the only three folks I’ve ever met, I doubt I’d be bailing out anyone around here (or expect them to do same for me).
NoVa – I think your assumptions are stuck a decade or two back. We used to warehouse the mentally ill. I spent an interesting summer working as a janitor at one such facility in 1984. There are some effective options nowadays (Melwood does the janitorial services where I work), but the street is a too common one. I’ve read some interesting and troubling stories of parents with mentally ill children and how they pretty much have to wait until something bad happens to force treatment. As the father of a couple of autistic kids, I’ve worried about that. Fortunately, today’s IEP meeting indicated they’re thriving. That’s the success of five years of hard work and such federal programs as that ADA that are dismissed around here as the welfare state. So, you’ll pardon me if my bullshit detector rings from time to time.
In patient drug treatment programs have long wait times or are expensive (or both). There is, of course, one alternative that seems to get plenty of love from the law and order type: prisons.
∂ß
LikeLike
FB:
I see no contradiction, so that puts it in the fathomable range.
Then I don’t understand why you would link what Mich might be able to expect with nova’s posture towards the safety net. Maybe I am humor impaired, but I don’t see any “amusing coincidence” between the the two posts, outside of the cartoonish notion of opponents of the welfare state as crusty curmudgeon’s who wouldn’t go out of their way to help anyone.
LikeLike
Louisville, Ohio State, Georgetown, Miami
Louisville over G’town in the final. 60-55.
LikeLike
If one assumes for a moment that a fulltime working person is entitled to a living wage (which I understand is a shaky concept in this group) then the issue becomes what constitutes a living wage and who is responsible for supplying it. My working definition is that it should be sufficient for an able-bodied adult to afford a shared apartment, groceries, transportation, and small luxuries such as a television, one night a week of entertainment. Basically enough so that your kid can move out of your basement.
Alternately, two full-time wage earners should be able to afford an apartment, two children, child-care, and above-said groceries, transportation, entertainment. This is essentially the poverty level. Minimum wage is currently below the poverty level so that when WalMart employees apply for foodstamps the government (i.e. the taxpayers) are subsidizing the employment practices of the WalMart rather than having Walmart customers/stockholders pay the full price of their labor.
This is discounting other practices of Walmart such as keeping employees below full-time status to make them ineligible for benefits or to redefine positions as managerial or professional so that no overtime is due. But these are just gaming the regulatory system as opposed to the fundamental concept of a living wage.
Jobs in retail, food service and construction are high-touch. They require a physical presence and are hard to outsource or automate. As such, they are highly inelastic to wages within a certain range. There is little downside from a economic impact to increasing the minimum wage by about 25%, perhaps in annual increments and then adjusting every two years to inflation.
And these jobs are not necessarily entry-level only. There are no teenagers working fast food in my rather affluent region. And check out the median age of the tellers at your next visit to a retail store. These are people either supporting themselves or families for years at a time.
LikeLike
yello:
Minimum wage is currently below the poverty level so that when WalMart employees apply for foodstamps the government (i.e. the taxpayers) are subsidizing the employment practices of the WalMart rather than having Walmart customers/stockholders pay the full price of their labor.
That is wrong. The government is subsidizing the individuals who collect foodstamps, not Walmart.
If these people were not employed by Walmart, they would still collect foodstamps. In fact, they would probably collect even more. So if anything, to the extent that whatever measly wages Walmart pays reduces the demand for foodstamps, it is the case that Walmart is aiding the welfare state, not vice-versa.
Certainly it may be true that the existence of foodstamps alters the incentives and thus behavior of those who receive them, and that employers in turn will respond to that behavior, but it is a perversion of reality to say that foodstamps are “subsidizing” employers. It is easy enough to see that your view is an inversion of the truth by simply imagining what would happen if the subsidy was removed. Would Walmart then have to offer people higher wages? Almost certainly not, because there would be even more people willing to work for whatever meager wages Walmart would offer, and given this greater demand for jobs, Walmart could probably actually lower the amount they were willing to pay.
As I said earlier, the very existence of the welfare state implies a minimum wage.
LikeLike
“If one assumes for a moment that a fulltime working person is entitled to a living wage (which I understand is a shaky concept in this group) then the issue becomes what constitutes a living wage and who is responsible for supplying it. “
And how you distinguish between jobs that should provide a living wage vs those that are entry level for teenagers, etc.
However, as you note, most of us reject your premise. No one is “entitled” to anything provided by someone else.
LikeLike
And how you distinguish between jobs that should provide a living wage vs those that are for teenagers, etc.
There are already a plethora of cut-outs for ‘teenagers” (and I’m talking about kids in school not legally eligible to make porn movies) with sub-minimum and training wages. They are very small portion of the labor market and a bit of red herring when discussing a living wage since many teenagers (including those most needing a living wage) can and have started families.
However, as you note, most of us reject your premise. No one is “entitled” to anything provided by someone else.
Hence the futility of bring up the issue at all. I might as well open a discussion on how progressive taxes should be.
I expect we will see built in touch screen ordering coming to a restaurant in the near future, with a corresponding reduction in staffing needs.
Several convenience store chains already have such systems in place and they are very nice for exactly the accuracy reasons you cite. However, someone still has to make the sandwich.
What I do despise are automated check-out lanes at grocery stores and home-improvement places. Whenever possible I will use a live cashier because I don’t find self-checkout to save me time or effort. I have gotten frustrated with these systems to the point where I have literally thrown items to get the attention of the employee in charge of monitoring these lanes.
Increased automation (which is fine and good, self-service stores killed the dry goods store business model) still doesn’t eliminate the need for shelf-stockers or other associated positions. There will always be some low-skill (not no-skill as my frustration at check-out machines makes me appreciate the clerks still remaining) low-education jobs needed and I will cling to their ‘right’ to support themselves regardless of the impurity of that concept in a purely libertarian utopia where all labor transactions are between equally empowered entities.
LikeLike
yello:
Hence the futility of bring up the issue at all.
Well, we could actually discuss the premise itself, but you generally tend to mock efforts to do so.
LikeLike
Well, we could actually discuss the premise itself, but you generally tend to mock efforts to do so.
Sure, I’m willing to discuss it. The counter-premise is that some people deserve to starve and die because they don’t have sufficient skills to be desirable to employers at a cost that covers living expenses. And this is not hyperbole. As an Irish-American (a group five times larger than the actual population of Ireland) I was radicalized on my recent trip to Ireland where I witnessed the remnants of a system in the form of large manor estates in close proximity to abandoned ‘famine villages’ that proved the ruling class was willing to literally let their laborers starve to death.
If that is mocking, please explain the alternative societal configuration that does not require either charity or minimum wage. And I do concur with you that the former does imply (infer?) the latter. I also assert that the minimum wage should be sufficient incentive to make charity only desirable to those most in need of it.
The traditional counter to this is trade unionism which seems to be anathema to libertarians on grounds I can’t quite discern.
On Thu, Mar 21, 2013 at 11:15 AM, All Things in Moderation wrote:
> ** > ScottC commented: “yello: Hence the futility of bring up the issue at > all. Well, we could actually discuss the premise itself, but you generally > tend to mock efforts to do so.” >
LikeLike
“Jobs in retail, food service and construction are high-touch. They require a physical presence and are hard to outsource or automate. “
I expect we will see built in touch screen ordering coming to a restaurant in the near future, with a corresponding reduction in staffing needs. Among other things, it improves order accuracy and allows the diner to only request waitstaff when they want them vs when the staff feels it’s convenient to interrupt the diners.
See this:
“Wine Drinkers of the World, Unite
You have nothing to lose but inflated bills and interrupted anecdotes.
By Christopher Hitchens|Posted Monday, May 26, 2008, at 7:26 AM”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/fighting_words/2008/05/wine_drinkers_of_the_world_unite.html
LikeLike
Christopher Hitchens’s tirade approaches self-parody as a crowning achievement in self-important first world entitlement problems. Overly or underly attentive waitstaff is not that big of an issue. I have never seen a waiter pour wine on the hand of a lady who has made the no-more wave over the top of the glass. And I am a bit non-plussed when I risk spilling wine all over myself or my companion when the waiter disappears for courses at a time, so Hitchens can go suck it.
I have begun to base my tipping percentage with a slight inverse relationship to the price of the meal. It’s easier and cheaper to overtip on an inexpensive meal and the staff seems more appreciative. Last night I left a nine dollar tip on a $35 dollar meal and the person I was splitting the check with remarked on how overjoyed the (fairly mediocre) server seemed. For two extra bucks I made someone’s day. Of course, part of the answer to that is to eliminate need for food service people to rely on other’s generosity by paying a decent wage to begin with.
LikeLike
Well, we could actually discuss the premise itself, but you generally tend to mock efforts to do so.
Sure, I’m willing to discuss it. The counter-premise is that some people deserve to starve and die because they don’t have sufficient skills to be desirable to employers at a cost that covers living expenses. And this is not hyperbole. As an Irish-American (a group five times larger than the actual population of Ireland) I was radicalized on my recent trip to Ireland where I witnessed the remnants of a system in the form of large manor estates in close proximity to abandoned ‘famine villages’ that proved the ruling class was willing to literally let their laborers starve to death.
If that is mocking, please explain the alternative societal configuration that does not require either charity or minimum wage. And I do concur with you that the former does imply (infer?) the latter. I also assert that the minimum wage should be sufficient incentive to make charity only desirable to those most in need of it.
The traditional counter to this is trade unionism which seems to be anathema to libertarians on grounds I can’t quite discern.
LikeLike
yello:
The counter-premise is that some people deserve to starve and die because they don’t have sufficient skills to be desirable to employers at a cost that covers living expenses.
No. The counter-premise is that no one is entitled to something that must be provided by someone else.
If that is mocking…
I would call that a non-sequitur, not mocking.
…please explain the alternative societal configuration that does not require either charity or minimum wage.
It is a simple fact of existence that there are only two ways that someone who is incapable of providing for his own sustenance can survive in this world. Either he can rely on the charity of others, or he can forcefully take what others produce.
From the others’ perspective, they may well want to provide him with the sustenance he needs, but if they do the key point is that he is receiving it out of the goodwill and compassion of those others, not because he is entitled to it by right.
The traditional counter to this is trade unionism which seems to be anathema to libertarians on grounds I can’t quite discern.
I have no problem with the existence of trade unions. I also have no problem with employers who want to employ people who are not members of trade unions.
LikeLike
“What I do despise are automated check-out lanes at grocery stores and home-improvement places. Whenever possible I will use a live cashier because I don’t find self-checkout to save me time or effort. I have gotten frustrated with these systems to the point where I have literally thrown items to get the attention of the employee in charge of monitoring these lanes.”
I’m the opposite. I’ll take the self serve every time. Same thing with pumping gas. Going to NJ is always culture shock where pumping one’s own gas is illegal.
I do find it absurd that you can get beer off the shelf, but you have to go to the customer service counter to request cigarettes.
LikeLike
I’m the opposite. I’ll take the self serve every time.
These are issues for which the market clearly decides. In my mind one (of many) of the advantages of Target over Walmart is that they tend to have more cashier lanes open and don’t seem to use as many automated stations.
I do find it absurd that you can get beer off the shelf, but you have to go to the customer service counter to request cigarettes.
Try living in a state where you can’t even buy beer and wine in a grocery store. The tobacco regulations seem to be as much loss-prevention control as nanny-statism. Although I concur with them in that tobacco is a much more inherently unhealthy practice (that is if the government has any role in public health coercion) than alcohol. If you could keep cigarettes out of the hands of people under 25 altogether the market for cigarettes would collapse. Freakonomics has a good chapter on how determined you have to be to acquire a nicotine dependency.
I’ve also long asserted that we have our drinking and driving ages reversed. Let kids drink at 16 but keep them from being behind the wheel until 21.
LikeLike
“Try living in a state where you can’t even buy beer and wine in a grocery store.”
It’s ridiculous. and they tax it too much. which is why i cart cases of wine from VA to maryland when we visit family. $10 bottle goes for $15-$20 on the wrong side of the river. apparently such a transport is illegal. oh well.
LikeLike
“I have begun to base my tipping percentage with a slight inverse relationship to the price of the meal. It’s easier and cheaper to overtip on an inexpensive meal and the staff seems more appreciative. Last night I left a nine dollar tip on a $35 dollar meal and the person I was splitting the check with remarked on how overjoyed the (fairly mediocre) server seemed. For two extra bucks I made someone’s day. Of course, part of the answer to that is to eliminate need for food service people to rely on other’s generosity by paying a decent wage to begin with.”
I’m a 20%er as a baseline because the mental math calculations are easier when one is drinking with a minimum of $5 usually regardless of how low the tab was on general principle. One of the best restaurants I’ve ever eaten at (steak house where they bring around the cuts of meat that you pick before they grill it) made a friend’s meal so well that he declared that he had eaten the perfect steak and went back to the kitchen and tipped the chef directly in addition to the wait staff.
Plus you get credit card points.
One question, before splitting the check did you inquire as to the AGI of your dining companion so that you could split it based on ability to pay, or did you split it based on what you actually consumed and therefore what it cost?
And yes, that is snark and you already know exactly where I’m going with that analogy.
LikeLike
“I’ve also long asserted that we have our drinking and driving ages reversed. Let kids drink at 16 but keep them from being behind the wheel until 21.”
One age cutoff for everything. You are either an adult or you aren’t.
LikeLike
One question, before splitting the check did you inquire as to the AGI of your dining companion so that you could split it based on ability to pay, or did you split it based on what you actually consumed and therefore what it cost?
It was a pretty torturous road but I did see where you were going. The value of the meal was not so large that it was going to affect either of our lifestyles at any varying division of the cost. And since my dining companion was a woman not my spouse I did not want to in anyway create any sense of obligation on her part so not letting her pay her full fair share was never in consideration.
When I am dining with people for whom eating out is not as common an occurrence due to economic conditions I almost always split the check in their favor out of generosity and selfishness in wanting their company in the future.
In the group of people I commonly split a check with (a rather laborious process which often takes a half hour or more) we have found that we are most likely to come up short when one particular fairly affluent person (and many of the others are as well as these are people who own multiple bicycles with 4 digit values) is in the group. It has got to the point that we refuse to sit with him if we can avoid it because he never pays his fair share. Make of that anecdote what you will.
LikeLike
bikers are selfish jerks — engage driver v. biker hatefest.
LikeLike
nova:
bikers are selfish jerks
Affirmative…they think the rules of the road do not apply to them. Stop signs? Meh.
I almost killed a biker once at a 3-way stop sign. He blew through the sign and took a left in front of my car on my turn to go, and when I slammed on my brakes to avoid taking him out, he gave me the finger and called me an asshole. (Yeah, yeah, don’t say it…)
I loathe bikers.
LikeLike
bikers are selfish jerks — engage driver v. biker hatefest
Game on. Drivers are arrogant assholes. We had a guy in a pickup truck once pull onto the side so that he could have a second chance at passing us too closely and yell at us.
LikeLike
bikers need to either take the lane or not. be predicable. they’re not.
i used to bike commute from alexandria to DC. I found that i’m a better driver b/c of it. more aware.
LikeLike
“If one assumes for a moment that a fulltime working person is entitled to a living wage”
I know you wrote working person, but I’m curious about a male who refuses to work, does that person deserve a living wage? The alternative is starvation, no?
LikeLike
I know you wrote working person, but I’m curious about a male who refuses to work, does that person deserve a living wage? The alternative is starvation, no?
Society in general, including myself, has little tolerance for genuine freeloaders. Getting people off the long term dole was the rallying cry of Clinton’s honored more in the breach ‘ending welfare as we know it’ reforms. Having done so is part of the reason behind the explosion of Social Security disability claims proving that the law of unintended consequences is immutable.
My answer above was to make the minimum wage so much higher than any available government support that people would prefer the latter but I doubt that can even be done as there will always be real (as opposed to Paul Ryan-styled) moochers. True MMTers (of which I am not one) propound that the government should be the employer of last resort. This was essentially the premise of most Great Depression era WPA style programs.
As a fan of the National Parks, I would love to see a reinstatement of a Civilian Conservation Corps type program except I fear that the rusticness of that era (bunk dormitories, mess halls, etc.) would be too harsh for modern sensibilities. A few weeks of restoring hiking paths are going to make that burger flipping job look a lot better.
LikeLike
yello:
My answer above was to make the minimum wage so much higher than any available government support that people would prefer the latter but I doubt that can even be done as there will always be real (as opposed to Paul Ryan-styled) moochers.
If your goal is to influence the behavior of potential moochers, then it doesn’t make a lot of sense to put in place a policy, ie a minimum wage, that will actually effect the behavior of employers. The relevent factor is the level of governemnt support, not the level of wages one can get. What you need to do is make the government support level just enough to ensure survival, but not so high that anyone would be remotely comfortable with it, and would therefore seek out private means of becoming more comfortable.
LikeLike
The alternative is starvation, no?
The alternative is homeless shelters or living on the streets.
LikeLike