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 | 1603.2 | -3.4 | -0.21% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2596.7 | -23.2 | -0.88% |
| Oil (WTI) | 97.22 | 0.2 | 0.18% |
| LIBOR | 0.273 | -0.001 | -0.33% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 82.83 | -0.075 | -0.09% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.52% | 0.05% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 102.1 | -0.5 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 101.1 | -0.4 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 205.5 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.38 |
Markets are down slightly on no real news. The NAPM-Milwaukee report came in better than expected. Bonds and MBS are down.
Big drop in mortgage rates yesterday. Bonds were up a bit, but this was a big move. Sounds like the pandemonium in the TBA market since last week is taking a breather. You had a period where mortgage REITs and originators were getting in each other’s way trying to sell TBAs. Perhaps the Great Mortgage REIT Convexity Hedge / Deleveraging Trade is finished, at least for the moment. Ginnie I / II spreads and Fannie / Gold spreads will tell the tale.
KB Home reported earnings yesterday, and gave some background on where they see the housing sector. There were two big takeaways from the conference call. First, the increase in interest rates is not negatively affecting demand; in fact it is creating a “sense of urgency” among buyers. This comports exactly with what Lennar said on their call earlier this week. Second (and this is big), the first time homebuyer is back. KB Home is one of the lower price points for the homebuilders and focuses on the first time and move up buyer. 60% of their business is the first time homebuyer. If this is in fact the case (and Lennar also observed the same thing) this is the last step needed for a full, robust housing recovery.
Pending Home Sales increased 6.7% to a 6 year high, according to NAR. These are contract signings, not sales, so they reflect the increase in rates over the month of May. We are finally seeing robust growth in the West. The Northeast was flat, but grew 14% year-over-year. The West grew 16%, but was flat year-over-year. Next month’s number will be very interesting because it will include the “Bernanke Scare”, which is becoming the euphemism for last week’s FOMC statement that scared the beejeezus out of the bond market.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Worth a read:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/06/27/lawyers-said-bush-couldnt-spy-on-americans-he-did-it-anyway/
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more on the “let’s get the gov out of the marriage business.”
but this is old hat for reason.
http://reason.com/archives/2013/06/28/lets-divorce-marriage-from-the-governmen#comments
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nova:
I’m with Reason, including this:
the court’s meddling has ensured that such a battle will keep going.
Contentious cultural issues that are decided by judicial fiat rather than as the result of the give and take of democracy increase rather than decrease passions and polarization. This is why Roe v Wade still remains such a festering boil on America’s body politic a full 40 years after it was issued.
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But if you take away judicial fiat you’re left with the fierce urgency of now.
Plus, who knows what the rubes will do.
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McWing:
Plus, who knows what the rubes will do.
Yes, that is the real problem, isn’t it?
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troll/Scott: People should know when they are conquered
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nova:
People should know when they are conquered
It’s just starting to sink in to me now.
BTW, there was an article in the WSJ today contrasting the “conservative” jurisprudence of Justice Roberts to the “more libertarian” jurisprudence of Justice Kennedy. I think I understand what a conservative or liberal approach to constitutional law, and I understand what a libertarian approach to law making would mean, but I haven’t any idea what characterizes a “libertarian” judicial philosophy. The WSJ article was hardly edifying on this point. Any clues?
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We the Rubes of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union…….
Some people are saying the Robert’s Court is giving us, the Rubes I guess, a little satisfaction on social policy to distract us while giving away the farm to corporate America.
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lms:
us, the Rubes
You’re not a rube, lms. I very much doubt the DC bien pensants are worried about what you might vote for.
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“the court’s meddling has ensured that such a battle will keep going.”
I don’t see gay marriage having the staying power of abortion as a cultural issue.
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jnc:
I don’t see gay marriage having the staying power of abortion as a cultural issue.
Possibly. But if it doesn’t I think that is an indication that if the court left well enough alone, it would have gotten its way soon enough anyway.
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Looking at Obamacare and the farm bill, it’s hard to argue against that.
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@jnc4p: “I don’t see gay marriage having the staying power of abortion as a cultural issue.”
I agree. Abortion is about the right of women to choose their own destiny and control their own bodies to most liberals, and about infanticide to most on the right. Put in very general terms.
As such, it has staying power. It’s about basic freedom for women, or about legalized murder to the pro-life crowd. I just don’t see that kind of dichotomy in gay marriage. People will get used to it, divorce lawyers will grow rich, and all will proceed much as it has in the past.
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scott — i think this is what you’re referring to
http://www.volokh.com/2013/06/26/federalism-marries-liberty-in-the-doma-decision/
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nova:
i think this is what you’re referring to
Yeah, Mark linked to that the other day. I don’t get what is “libertarian” about the argument. It relies on a (incorrect, I think) application of federalism, but I don’t see anything about it that makes the “libertarian” characterization sensible. Is there a judicial philosophy known as or associated with libertarianism?
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see also http://reason.com/archives/2010/06/08/conservatives-v-libertarians
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Nova…that’s an interesting link…tks
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nova…just wanted to say thanks again for that Reason article….it was really interesting. I will take some time to digest it.
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Scott, who exactly are the DC bien pensants in your opinion? I’m trying to figure out if that was an insult or not? It kind of “feels” like one………….haha
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lms:
Scott, who exactly are the DC bien pensants in your opinion?
Anyone who thinks, for example, like Kennedy and his liberal comrades on the bench that DOMA was and could only have been motivated by a “bare desire to do harm to a politically unpopular group”. Or, as wiktionary puts it, “Someone who accepts and/or espouses a fashionable idea after it has been established and maintains it without a great amount of critical thought.” DC is loaded with such people.
And yes, I suppose it is somewhat of an insult…of them, not you.
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I have a question. Absent Roe do you guys think abortion would have been a settled issue? In other words, I don’t really believe there is a way to settle the issue because of the strong beliefs on each side. Whether abortion is legal or illegal, the other side will be outraged. I just don’t see how letting individual states determine their own policy would prevent either pro-life or pro-choice interference.
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lms:
Absent Roe do you guys think abortion would have been a settled issue?
In almost all places, yes. I think that in a large majority of states the moderate middle would have prevailed with a stabilizing compromise, with abortion being legal along with somewhat more restrictions than are allowed to exist now under the Roe regime. Those restrictions would vary, ie some would have cutoffs at 20 weeks, some at 24, some maybe a little earlier or a little later, but abortions would still be obtained relatively easily. In a few states abortion would be outlawed entirely. And in a few it would continue to be a highly contentious issue, it being legal but with legislators constantly trying to scale it back, much in the manner that is going on today.
But the biggest difference would be that it would never have become a national issue. A national coalition of pro-life organizations would never have come to exist, and would certainly never have come to exert the kind of influence it now exerts over the national Republican party, nor would radical feminists have come to hold such influence over the Democratic party. Our national politics would never have come to be perverted by abortion politics, with abortion litmus tests being applied (by BOTH parties) to nominees for elected office and to federal courts. The “religious right” would probably never have become a significant influence on national politics, as it concentrated its efforts in the only place where it mattered, ie at the state level, and in the few states where they had a chance of prevailing. We would have far less polarized parties, with more publicly declared pro-choice Republicans and pro-life Democrats on the national stage, because those positions would not be nearly as toxic within their respective parties as they are now. It just wouldn’t matter at a national level.
As I said earlier, it is difficult, I believe, to understate the effects of having nationalized this issue.
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tough call — but i think it wouldn’t be as heated. It’s been awhile since i’ve read Roe … and i’m not a lawyer .. but it always struck me as kind of a mess.
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glad it was useful. i think cato would be a good place to poke around for a similar discussion.
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Scott
Maybe because I’m older than you and remember not only the conditions under which women acquired abortions, but also the fight about legalization, I don’t think a moderate middle would have been found. I believe I am in the moderate middle you describe right now but I don’t know any pro-life man or woman who could accept the kind of compromise that you describe.
I think you’re probably correct that there would be some states where it would be legal and some not but I don’t think it would ever be truly settled even state by state. I understand your point that nationalizing it created the kind of radical coalitions that exist today but they also existed in many forms before Roe. The National Right to Life Committee was formed in 1968 and at the time Roe was considered only a set back in the fight. It’s true the term pro-life came after Roe though and I do think the decision mobilized both sides to a greater extent. I’m not sure how much different it would have been though if the courts had left it to the states.
I don’t think it’s the same kind of issue that capital punishment is for example. I believe it’s bigger and much more important to people. I do think the decision was a mistake but probably for different reasons than you do.
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Roe a mistake? why (or put a pin in that for later … its friday afternoon and i’m mentally clocked out)
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http://reason.com/blog/2013/06/28/nsas-surveillance-operations-the-envy-of
Former Stasi envious of NSA
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lms:
I don’t know any pro-life man or woman who could accept the kind of compromise that you describe.
Sure you do…me.
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Scott
I don’t consider you or anyone else here to actually be pro-life in the “movement” sense. The only man here I haven’t heard from lately in explaining their own personal opinion is NoVA and so I’m not sure of his views, as I believe he is a practicing Catholic.
I know you’re not technically pro-choice but we’re both basically in the moderate middle. I don’t think the true pro-life movement will accept any compromise. How could they if life begins at conception? That would be like saying a woman is a little bit pregnant. By the same token I don’t consider myself pro-abortion as you like to frame it when I get a little too feminist for my own good or something, hah.
I’m confident you and I could reach an agreement and most everyone else here would get on board but I don’t think that means a thing to the political movement on either side of the debate. In my opinion they’ve both boxed themselves into a corner.
People such as Rick Perry freely admit the goal is to make abortion illegal again and he’s a governor of a state that has a very active pro-choice movement. The legislation working it’s way through the TX Senate in special sessions is not meant to be a compromise, it’s meant to be a step toward what I believe will eventually be the criminalization of abortion.
In Perry’s own words:
“It is entirely their call if abortion facilities would rather close than operate under health and safety laws. We are under no obligation to make things easier for the abortionists. The ideal world is a world without abortion.
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Scott:
I think that in a large majority of states the moderate middle would have prevailed with a stabilizing compromise, with abortion being legal along with somewhat more restrictions than are allowed to exist now under the Roe regime. Those restrictions would vary, ie some would have cutoffs at 20 weeks, some at 24, some maybe a little earlier or a little later, but abortions would still be obtained relatively easily. In a few states abortion would be outlawed entirely. And in a few it would continue to be a highly contentious issue, it being legal but with legislators constantly trying to scale it back, much in the manner that is going on today.
I’d be interested in reading your reasoning for why you think this would be true. Because I don’t see that at all–I think at least half the states would be “Ireland”, with no abortion rights at all, and the rest would be largely restrictive. If you look at where the country was before Roe, how in the world do you get to the libertarian paradise you’ve envisioned?
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Obviously we cannot prove a counterfactual history. But I think far more relevant than where states were prior to Roe is where they were going. Prior to Roe states were clearly trending towards liberalizing their abortion laws. In 1965 no state allowed abortion for any reason. By the time Roe was decided, abortion was legal in 17 states, either for any reason or at least to protect a woman’s health (which, since it included mental health, amounted to the same as any reason). Not included among those 17 states are many places like Connecticut, Vermont, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota…ie places where liberalism dominates and it is difficult to imagine abortion not being allowed eventually.
I also think the fact that SCOTUS essentially granted the pro-abortion movement a full-fledged victory across the nation in one fell swoop warped the politics of the issue. Since Roe, the anti-abortion movement has had to, of necessity, be on the political offensive, while the pro-abortion movement is simply defending the status quo. It is much easier to conjure up public objection to what is wrong with the current status quo than to what might be wrong if the status quo is changed. And that is especially true when the public itself had no responsibility for establishing the status quo, as was the case in Roe. Had Roe been decided in favor of the states, the political offensive would have belonged to the pro-abortion movement, and instead of stories about the grisly practice of partial birth abortions and things like Dr. Gosnell, the media focus would have been on stories about the poor college girl whose future was snuffed out by a back alley abortionist. The media and political pressure would have been local to states and entirely on efforts to liberalize abortion laws that are too restrictive rather than what it is now, ie national and on efforts to restrict abortion laws that are too liberal. And once liberalization came at the ballot box rather than in the courts, then the “people” would have actually been invested in the choice that they had made for reasons of their own choosing, and would more readily defend that choice against the fringes who might continue to assault that choice (from either side). As it is now, neither states nor the people have a vested interest in defending abortion laws, because they didn’t have the opportunity to shape those laws. The Court stole that choice away from them.
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Absent Roe do you guys think abortion would have been a settled issue?
No. At the logical philosophical extremes there is no room for compromise. I agree with Michi that we would have coastal states where abortion was relatively accessible and a broad swatch of the center of the country where it would unavailable except perhaps in the standard rape/incest/life of mother cases if at all.
Ireland is strong counter-example. They take the ‘life of the mother’ test very seriously to the point that the danger becomes apparent only in hindsight.
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yello:
Ireland is a strong counter example.
I don’t think so. Something like 85% of the Irish population is Roman Catholic. I doubt there is a single state in the US that has even a Catholic majority, much less that extent of cultural domination.
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I doubt there is a single state in the US that has even a Catholic majority, much less that extent of cultural domination.
Catholics are only one portion of the US pro-life movement. In the individual states I bet percent of Catholics has a poor correlation with toughness of abortion regulations.
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yello:
Catholics are only one portion of the US pro-life movement.
Maybe, but they are pretty much the entire portion of the Irish law-making movement. Which is why Ireland is not a particularly strong counter example.
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It appears that Justice Ginsburg agrees with you Scott. This pro-life outfit doesn’t think much of her reasoning normally, but they agree with her here.
“That was my concern,” the distinguished justice told a crowd of law students at the University of Chicago this month, “that the court had given opponents of access to abortion a target to aim at relentlessly. … My criticism of Roe is that it seemed to have stopped the momentum that was on the side of change.”
http://www.lifenews.com/2013/05/22/justice-ginsburg-was-right-roe-v-wade-abortion-case-too-extreme/
My opinion at the time of Roe was that they should have settled it as a rights issue, not a privacy issue and that they left the states too much discretion to dial it back which has kept the issue alive and festering all these years. I also believed they should have left only a very narrow opening of time to seek an abortion. Sort of like a minimum standard of opportunity on the national level and then if they wanted to give the states more control the states could expand the rules not contract them. If I remember correctly at the time there was a huge margin of approval according to polls for availability of first trimester abortions, but beyond that things became dicey.
Another busy and hot day here so I’ll talk to y’all later. At least it’s Saturday…..yay. We’re taking tomorrow off…..yay again.
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lms:
It appears that Justice Ginsburg agrees with you Scott.
The point seems really obvious to me. Arguing that without Roe there would be no legal abortion in the US in 2013 is, to me, like arguing that without the 13th amendment slavery would still be practiced throughout the south in 2013. Such a view pretends that cultural change only comes about when forced upon the nation by law. I think that is BS, and in fact I think it was cultural change itself the prompted both the abolition of slavery movement and the movement to legalize abortion. The trouble, in the case of abortion, was that the political elite got impatient and imposed its own desired full-bore change on a nation whose cultural evolution was not moving fast enough for the taste of the elite. And by imposing this change rather than allowing it to occur in its own time, and by doing so in such an a-constitutional manner, it wreaked all kinds of havoc, both culturally and politically.
In terms of both its legal reasoning and its consequences on the national polity, Roe really has to rank among the worst SCOTUS decisions in American history.
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I have always been fascinated by the statement from Justice Ginsburg.
I had thought that at the time Roe was decided, there was concern about population growth and particularly growth in populations that we don’t want to have too many of.
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This is really interesting about Snowden, Greenwaldand Poitres. Did they and The Gaurdian help Snowden before he left Booz Allen? If they did, were they still merely recipients of his information, or were they participants?
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887323873904578573382649536100?mg=reno64-wsj
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Scott
A couple of things. First, I don’t think any of us argued that there would be no legal abortion in the US absent Roe. I didn’t ask if it would still be illegal I asked if anyone thought it would be a settled issue. I’m sure there would be states where it was legal and others where it was not. And the cultural change that led to the abolition of slavery was prompted by a Civil War that some still haven’t gotten over. So while things do change culturally for some they never do for others. A hundred years later we finally got around to Civil Rights.
I think abortion is that kind of issue.
I believe a national ruling is appropriate, I just don’t think Roe was the right way to do it. And while I agree with you and Justice Ginsburg (that sounds really weird doesn’t it?) that Roe created a big fat target for the anti-abortion crowd, I’m not convinced at all that a so-called cultural change would have settled the issue by now though. I’m not even a little convinced of it.
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lms:
I didn’t ask if it would still be illegal I asked if anyone thought it would be a settled issue.
I guess maybe I don’t know what you mean by “settled”.
I believe a national ruling is appropriate…
I don’t. The whole point of a federal system is that it can accommodate many different values and it affords people the best chance of living under the kinds of rules that they find agreeable, especially when it comes to highly contentious issues. Elevating such contentious issues to a national level means, necessarily, telling a large portion of people “I don’t care what you think. Too bad, you lose.”
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While I agree with Lulu that I wish Roe had been decided as a rights issue rather than a privacy issue, I wish even more that SCOTUS had said “What the hell are you doing asking us to decide this? And it’s not a legislative issue, either–it’s a medical issue. Let the doctors and their patients, as guided by their personal spiritual mentors
adviseadvice deal with it.”Because it really is a medical issue. Legislators trying to define viability, defining “late term” abortions (which I, personally, would put at 36 weeks or more), describing fetuses as masturbating. . . it has removed what should be a purely personal medical decision into the realm of public opinion, where it never should have been. What does popular opinion have to do with medical decision making, other than we’re driving ourselves into a hole.
And in the US, it isn’t the Catholics driving the anti-abortion bus, it’s the fundamentalists and evangelicals. Protestants all, which is why I put “Ireland” in quotes in my first comment.
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Because it really is a medical issue.
No it isn’t. It is a moral/ethical issue.
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Scott
I guess maybe I don’t know what you mean by “settled”.
Just uniformly accepted as either legal or illegal on a national level. I unfortunately don’t believe that human rights issues can be settled piece meal by the states. I consider abortion a rights issue the same way I do other civil rights and I just don’t buy the 50 different approaches method to settling at least what needs to be a basic framework that guarantees rights.
There are competing rights IMO between mother and fetus after a certain point in the pregnancy at some point close to viability and so also, in my opinion, we need an authoritative safeguard and set of rules for when the rights of one supersede the other or at least carry equal standing.
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lms:
Just uniformly accepted as either legal or illegal on a national level.
Well, then, of course I don’t think it would have been settled absent Roe. Without Roe it would have been legislated by the states, and as I said various states would have various restrictions.
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The whole point of a federal system is that it can accommodate many different values and it affords people the best chance of living under the kinds of rules that they find agreeable, especially when it comes to highly contentious issues.
You’re assuming that people can always choose where they live, which is that libertarian paradise again. That simply isn’t true in the real world, and why should a woman living in Mississippi find her options to be more restricted than a woman living in New York?
NoVA is advocating for nationalized concealed carry laws. Explain to me why someone’s right to carry a concealed weapon should be any different than someone’s right to medical treatment.
And, while there are moral and ethical aspects to abortion, abortion qua abortion is a medical issue. When you start overlaying moral and ethical aspects on to it you start moving into the territory of church and state separation.
Edit: I meant that last paragraph to end with the sentence “We’re all Americans, rather than Mississippians or New Yorkers or what ever. Federalism works for some things but not for all.”
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Scott, you answered my settled question above already, much the same as the rest of us, some states legal, some illegal and some still contentious except you interpreted that as settled. No big deal, I just don’t call that settled but then you went on to suggest that
Arguing that without Roe there would be no legal abortion in the US in 2013
as if that is what I or anyone else was saying. I was challenging that assertion by you because no one actually said that………………..we all pretty much agreed with your interpretation of the situation, some legal, some not and still controversial in places.
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lms:
as if that is what I or anyone else was saying.
Both Mich and yello seem to think that legal abortion would only be found on the coastal states. I think that is highly unlikely.
But even if it were true, I don’t see why the preferences of coastal elites should be forced upon the entire nation. Religious people in Kansas have just as much right to live in the kinds of communities they want as do atheist academics in Massachusetts. The founders created a federalist system for a reason. I realize I am fighting what is probably a losing battle against the tide of leftism that wants to concentrate power at the federal level and rule the whole country. But I’m not prepared to surrender just yet.
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