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 | 1701.8 | -2.2 | -0.13% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2807.7 | -3.3 | -0.12% |
| Oil (WTI) | 105.9 | -1.0 | -0.95% |
| LIBOR | 0.265 | -0.001 | -0.45% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 81.99 | 0.077 | 0.09% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.62% | 0.03% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104.6 | -0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103.8 | -0.2 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.38 |
Markets are flattish after a wild week with an unexpectedly strong GDP report, a dovish FOMC statement, and a disappointing jobs report. This week is very data-light, so I don’t expect a whole lot of movement. We do have some Treasury auctions this week, but I don’t see that as market moving. Bonds and MBS are down small.
The 10 year traded in a range of 2.57% to 2.74%. So far, it is looking like 2.74% is acting as resistance.
Another data point showing the first time homebuyer is being put off by higher rates – Beazer Homes announced a drop in orders as traffic has slowed due to higher interest rates. So far we have seen drops in orders from Pulte and Beazer – both geographically diverse builders with an emphasis on lower price points.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
The dog days of summer I think.
This seems like a pretty big deal to me.
One current federal prosecutor learned how agents were using SOD tips after a drug agent misled him, the prosecutor told Reuters. In a Florida drug case he was handling, the prosecutor said, a DEA agent told him the investigation of a U.S. citizen began with a tip from an informant. When the prosecutor pressed for more information, he said, a DEA supervisor intervened and revealed that the tip had actually come through the SOD and from an NSA intercept.
“I was pissed,” the prosecutor said. “Lying about where the information came from is a bad start if you’re trying to comply with the law because it can lead to all kinds of problems with discovery and candor to the court.” The prosecutor never filed charges in the case because he lost confidence in the investigation, he said.
A senior DEA official said he was not aware of the case but said the agent should not have misled the prosecutor. How often such misdirection occurs is unknown, even to the government; the DEA official said the agency does not track what happens with tips after the SOD sends them to agents in the field.
The SOD’s role providing information to agents isn’t itself a secret. It is briefly mentioned by the DEA in budget documents, albeit without any reference to how that information is used or represented when cases go to court.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805
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No one answered my questions yesterday regarding our daughter’s trip on Saturday to Tanzania. They’re flying through Amsterdam and doing a guided safari and climbing Kilimanjaro through “Climb Kili” and then heading on their own to Zanzibar for a few days. One of the girls is freaking out a little. I told them to register with the Embassy in Tanzania which isn’t closing as far as we know. I know there were troubles there maybe 15 years ago I think but right now the threats seem to be coming from Northern Africa.
Any thoughts? I’m trying not to worry.
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They should tell people they’re Canadian, if asked casually.
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Bleeding of the NSA surveillance techniques from the War on Terror to the War on Drugs was inevitable.
See also:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-nsa-idUSBRE9740AI20130805
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How do we feel about drone strikes on drug lords in Mexico and Columbia?
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Go figure.
This one President Obama did all on his own.
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“Troll McWingnut or George, whichever, on August 5, 2013 at 8:24 am said:
How do we feel about drone strikes on drug lords in Mexico and Columbia?”
Or Washington State?
http://my.firedoglake.com/acmerecords/2013/07/25/breaking-obama-dea-stormtroops-into-the-evergreen-state/
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Don’t think it won’t happen. Probably already has.
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Don’t get me started on the militarization of the police force. Jackbooted thugs literally killed Bambi.
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Washington Post piece on the NSA/DEA connection.
And also:
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I’m not sure if chutzpah is a strong enough term to describe Marc Thiessen’s column lamenting the fact that the various Obama administration “scandals” (i.e. IRS, etc) have caused the public to loose trust in the administration and are thus undermining it’s credibility on the NSA monitoring disclosures.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-how-obamas-irs-scandal-harms-national-security/2013/08/05/9fea9616-fde1-11e2-96a8-d3b921c0924a_story.html
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This is a great idea
“Give Manning and Snowden the Nobel Peace Prize
If the Nobel committee had any guts, it would honor America’s leakers and deliver a smackdown to the security state
By Andrew O’Hehir
Saturday, Aug 3, 2013 12:15 PM EST”
http://www.salon.com/2013/08/03/give_manning_and_snowden_the_nobel_peace_prize/
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Worth noting:
“Paul Krugman Against Reality
Posted Monday, Aug. 5, 2013, at 10:31 AM
By Josh Barro
In his column this morning, headlined “Republicans Against Reality,” Paul Krugman writes that “the modern G.O.P. is lost in fantasy, unable to participate in actual governing.” One example from last week, per Krugman: “House leaders announced plans to hold a vote cutting spending on food stamps in half.”
But House leaders did no such thing. The Republican plan is actually a 5 percent cut to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, commonly known as food stamps), up from the 2.5 percent cut they were seeking previously. Krugman seems to have taken the $40 billion in cuts that Republicans are proposing over a 10-year budget window and mistakenly applied them to a single year—thus turning a 5 percent cut into 50 percent.”
http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/08/05/paul_krugman_gets_the_republicans_snap_proposal_wrong.html
Krugman’s original piece:
And his correction:
“August 5, 2013, 6:15 am
Food Stamps: A Correction
I assume we’ll put up a formal correction later, but I somehow confused x and 1/x in today’s column. House Republicans proposed doubling cuts to food stamps, not cutting them in half. Nothing important changes in my argument, but I did make a mistake. And it’s both Times policy and mine to acknowledge errors when you make them.”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/05/food-stamps-a-correction/
This point was intersting:
“Nothing important changes in my argument”
because we all know 50% and 5% are the exact same thing.
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jnc:
because we all know 50% and 5% are the exact same thing.
Particularly ironic was the fact that in the article Krugman accused the GOP of wanting to “repeal reality, and the laws of arithmetic in particular.”
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because we all know 50% and 5% are the exact same thing.
That’s a pretty big blunder. On par with the undergrad intern (and just who was her advisor?) who said doubling the wages of McDonald’s workers would raise the price of their food by only 17% when really it would be much more because she forgot to count the employees of the franchisees.
Part of the confusion (and there really is no excusing Krugman in this case) is the sliding back and forth between annual and the much more fictitious ten-year costs of proposals. When you want a number to sound small use the former and when you want it to sound big, the latter. And of course there is the usual shenanigans about whether the cuts are in real dollars or per capita spending or cuts in rate of growth and whether they are really cuts at all.
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jnc
On that Thiesssen piece, this is the sentence that killed me.
Moreover, a majority of Americans say the IRS scandal has caused them to doubt the “overall honesty and integrity” of the Obama administration.
Looks like Issa’s goals were achieved………….sheesh
And then he goes on to talk about NSA in terms that defy reality.
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If it weren’t for Gerson and the part-time appearances by Bill Kristol, Thiessen would be the most intellectually dishonest resident at Fred Hiatt’s Home For Wayward Neo-Cons.
The whole article reminded of the apocryphal kid who killed his parents and then begged for the mercy of the court because he was an orphan. There’s also a certain wolf-crying bit of just desserts going on as well.
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lms (from Thiessan):
Moreover, a majority of Americans say the IRS scandal has caused them to doubt the “overall honesty and integrity” of the Obama administration.
Proving just how slow a majority of Americans really are.
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Proving just how slow a majority of Americans really are.
Bazinga! A genuine LOL. Or at least a CUMB (Chuckle Under My Breath)
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Here’s also how you play games with numbers: only list select years for prior year comparisons:
“The size of the transportation spending bill has fallen from $67.9 billion in fiscal 2010, the last time Democrats were in the House majority, to $55.5 billion in 2012 and $51.8 billion in 2013.
Once the sequester was triggered, the number fell even further, to $48.5 billion. Wringing an additional $4.4 billion out of the budget proved a cut too far.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-a-bill-on-the-road-to-nowhere/2013/08/01/b3d4f1a0-faec-11e2-9bde-7ddaa186b751_story.html
When deciding whether a spending cut is too draconian to implement, I’d be real interested to know what the transportation spending was in say 2007, 2008, and 2009 in addition to what it was during “the last time Democrats were in the House majority”.
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Hence the description of chutzpah.
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Yellow, maybe Krugman can claim his error was due to a bad spreadsheet calculation?
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Hence the description of chutzpah.
Chutzpah was pretty near perfect despite as you noticed the intense understatement it conveys. The phrase ‘galling disingenuity’ also comes to mind.
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Hence the description of chutzpah.
and
Proving just how slow a majority of Americans really are.
yep, to both. Unlike yello though, I’m not finding it very funny.
I know I talk up the partisan issues around here and sometimes it’s even more or less to get a rise out of someone, but really, he almost sounded like he believed it.
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Completely off topic…I’m taking a poll. Who keeps their butter in the refrigerator and who keeps it in a butter dish outside the fridge?
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I keep one stick of salted butter out on the counter in a butter dish. I suspect it takes about two weeks to go through one stick and then I pull out a new one.
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He’s offended that something may undermine the growth of the security state and the War on Terror, which in Theissen’s mind at least transcends partisan differences.
The irony of course is that he really couldn’t ask for a better caretaker for the Bush War on Terror policies than Obama has proven to be. There was no one better suited than the constitutional law professor who ran against the Iraq war to convert them into bi-partisian establishment consensus.
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jul/25/democratic-establishment-nsa
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“The irony of course is that he really couldn’t ask for a better caretaker for the Bush War on Terror policies than Obama has proven to be. There was no one better suited than the constitutional law professor who ran against the Iraq war to convert them into bi-partisian establishment consensus.”
But I believe in this and its been tested by research
He who fucks nuns, will later join the church
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He who fucks nuns, will later join the church
You’re quoting The Clash just to get on my good side, aren’t you?
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We keep our butter in the fridge……always. We don’t use much butter but even if we used it every day I’d still keep it in the fridge.
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I keep mine out.
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In the fridge.
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Only an anarchist keeps it out.
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My general rule is if it’s in the refrigerated aisle at the grocery store, it goes in the refrigerator when I get home.
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The advantage of butter over margarine is that it doesn’t melt into a puddle at room temperature. If it’s salted, it should keep fairly well. I’m just too lazy to cut hard butter.
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yello:
I’m just too lazy to cut hard butter.
I just can’t stand trying to spread hard butter on toast or bread without destroying it. Plus I grew up without refrigerating it, and no one died. But I am fascinated with the disapproval I get from people who come to the house and see the butter out. Like I am poisoning them or something.
Next up…corn on the cob…is rolling it in the stick of butter allowed?
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Only if you provide a separate stick for everybody.
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Good corn doesn’t need butter. Do you drink out of the milk carton too?
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lms:
Good corn doesn’t need butter.
Nothing “needs” butter, but everything tastes better with it.
Do you drink out of the milk carton too?
If I drank milk I would. But only if no one was watching.
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Good Charles Pierce piece on the NSA/DEA link:
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That reminds me of the only slightly exaggerated assertion that all airport security measures are simply random procedures designed to make us as accepting of arbitrary authority as possible.
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I prefer the phrase “security theater” myself.
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Butter: on the counter
Corn on the cob: of course you roll it in butter–that you’ve made a nice mushy pile of on your plate with salt in it.
Having flown Friday and today, I can tell you that security at the airports is quite different. It shocked the USSS agents at DTW that I knew that they were USSS agents, but TSA is stepped up with more agents and checkpoints (so that they can spend more time/passenger) than I’ve ever seen.
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I don’t know Scott, it sort of appears to me that leaving the butter on the counter is more of a liberal thing……………….congratulations.
I’m with jnc and George (I think)…………sucks for you.
I don’t generally put butter on my vegetables or anything else really. I do cook with it occasionally and at Christmas we buy unsalted butter by the pound for cookies and candy. On toast I use peanut butter (the natural kind, roasted, no salt), I dip bread in my salad dressing and sandwiches are covered in mustard or a little Dijonaise. That’s the only time I eat bread.
I do have one guilty pleasure though. I love butter on freshly popped popcorn, not at the theater, at home.
Michi, thanks for the heads up on airport security. I’ll pass it on to my daughter. I’m wondering if she’ll be able to hide the ashes she’s bringing with her, it’s like maybe 1/4 cup. I’m thinking she should put them in her make up bag. If they confiscate them we’re screwed.
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I put my dad’s ashes in a ziplock bag today–a little less than 1/4 cup. They didn’t (as far as I could tell) even look twice at them. I put the bag into the “urn” but left the top off (and I had his death certificate with me), and put it in the same pocket that had my liquids in their ziplock bag.
Hope that helps!
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Did they look at the death certificate? All the copies we have left are in NM and I didn’t think to bring one home last time I was there. My sister will never find one and send it off in time. I was thinking she could put the ashes in a compact or something and they’d never notice. I think it’s more difficult for International travel. We don’t have time to do it legal, so we need to hide them and sneak them through I think. Hopefully NSA isn’t reading ATiM………….lol, or my email……….yikes.
I told her tonight to hold a few back just in case they confiscate them.
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Nope, they didn’t look at anything. What was interesting to me today was that they weren’t really looking at luggage, other than to run it through the usual x-ray machine, but they were definitely spending more time talking to people. The TSA agent I dealt with asked me four or five questions about Michigan State (and it was clear that he knew the real answers).
It might be easiest, if there isn’t anything that she needs the ashes for in transit (like scattering in connecting points) to FedEx them (or the equivalent).
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