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 | 1700.7 | -1.8 | -0.11% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2811.4 | 2.4 | 0.08% |
| Oil (WTI) | 107 | 0.5 | 0.44% |
| LIBOR | 0.266 | 0.001 | 0.38% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 81.74 | -0.138 | -0.17% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.63% | 0.00% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104.6 | 0.0 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103.9 | 0.1 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.37 |
Stocks are lower this morning on no real news. August is usually a slow month, so you often see big moves on no real volume, or without any important reason. Bonds and MBS are up.
Mortgage Applications rose last week for the first time in two months. The purchase index was up small while the refi index fell slightly.
Obama laid out his housing plan in a speech yesterday. There was nothing major in it, with the exception that he wants to tax mortgage backed securities to fund low-income housing. Supposedly this would replace explicit goals for lending to low income borrowers. So basically, it is euthanize Fan and Fred, beef up FHA, make the government a mortgage reinsuer, and impose an additional tax on mortgage backed securities.
Freddie Mac may do something about eminent domain.
No MR tomorrow of Friday
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
No MR tomorrow? What the hell are we paying you for?
I hate long comment threads.
And, First.
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Not a particularly good analogy:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/harold-meyerson-a-hard-landing-for-the-middle-class/2013/08/06/e8948e4c-fec4-11e2-bd97-676ec24f1f3f_story.html
Meyerson clearly has forgotten the time period prior to the 1970’s deregulation where air travel was a pure luxury good.
This is odd in that he’s always invoking the time prior to Reagan as a golden era for American workers.
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Moar R WoW.
http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/us/san-diego-mayor-scandal/index.html?sr=sharebar_twitter
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That Filner story is devastating.
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How fucked up is it that you look at LBJ, Nixon and most of George Wallace loving Jimmy Carter as re height of America?
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I’m still trying to figure out how the guy thinks he can save his career by going into counseling for two weeks. He’s got a lifetime addiction if all the stories are true, which I suspect they are. What a creep.
Not surprisingly his creepiness didn’t just start when he became a mayor.
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From the Filner story:
Ick. And super-ick. That behavior is predatory.
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I thought the body had a way of shutting that down.
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“guy thinks he can save his career by going into counseling for two weeks”
I’m willing to bet he honestly believes it. I also would be wiling to bet that he likely doesn’t think he did anything wrong. I really can’t undersell the entitlement mentality.
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If only there had been some powerful Democrat that could have intervened.
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I also would be wiling to bet that he likely doesn’t think he did anything wrong.
You’re likely right. And he’s also been married twice and was engaged when this whole thing started breaking (she’s since dumped him) so his argument would likely be something along the lines of “Well when I talked like that to my wife she thought it was cute!”
This whole thing makes Anthony Weiner look good by comparison, which I wouldn’t have thought would be possible.
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“Well when I talked like that to my wife she thought it was cute!”
That’s the problem with guys who use the “Get slapped ninety-nine times, get lucky once” strategy. They only go by the successes.
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The single smartest person I have ever known, while in college, actually directly and forthwith propositioned every woman who attracted his fancy. He claimed he averaged 6% success. He was an essentially truthful person so I suspect he kept score. He did not do unwanted touching, however. I saw a few of his failures, but none of his successes.
Today he is an acclaimed econometrician in the O&G industry.
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Asymmetric incentive structure.
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Brent, what are the predictable consequences of
tax mortgage backed securities to fund low-income housing?
It will raise a little money that will be earmarked, supposedly, for what? Building apartment units?
Will it slow MBS trading significantly? If it did, what would be the result?
Clearly if it is a cost feature that can be passed on it will increase mortgage rates. If that is a nominal increase it won’t affect consumption, I would guess from past experience. The refi business should dry up, anyway, as interest rates rise. Another tenth of an inch of rain wouldn’t cause a flood.
Without Fan/Fred or govt backed mortgages won’t the thirty year loan be a thing of the past?
Help me out here. I don’t think any of this sounds catastrophic, but I do wonder about the low income housing. If not apartment units, trailer parks?
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Asymmetric incentive structure.
BWAhahahahahahaha!
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Now we know why.
http://www.businessinsider.com/if-the-climate-bill-had-failed-pelosi-was-probably-done-as-speaker-2009-6
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propositioned every woman who attracted his fancy
I think I knew him…………………………..just kidding. It was someone just like him. In some ways he’s “everyman”. As women we’re trained to let a lot of this roll off our backs. There’s definitely a line for most of us and a “Filner” type always seems to cross it. He has no impulse control and doesn’t know how to take no for an answer. When it’s particularly awful is when the guy is in a position of authority and has power over you.
If you talked to 1000 women I’d wager that 900 of them have been propositioned by unsolicited attention…………..of a creepy nature, not just the dating game type.
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Very amusing. Some might even call it ironic. The Nation recently wrote an open letter to Walmart’s CEO demanding that Walmart pay its workers a minimum of $12/hour. It also encouraged its readers to sign a petition demanding the same. Walmart responds:
edit: To be fair, The Nation does provide housing to its interns. But not any healthcare benefits.
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The guy I am referencing actually designed the Saudi oil pricing system, still in effect, for Aramco. When he was 24 he published a book that I think was called “The Nature of Mathematics and its Implications for Economics.” He walked out of an advanced calculus exam in fifteen minutes having written on the exam “you son of a bitch, this is an insoluble proposition” and having devised a proof of its insolubility. He learned fluent but badly accented French in 2 weeks and then seduced the French instructor who was later fired. He made any physics problem I was struggling with seem simple. Everything came clear to him as if everyone else had blinders, but he could explain difficult stuff to anyone. You might say he was brilliant and “charismatic”.
If he is alive he will be 72 tomorrow.
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Our daughter’s nemesis in college was a really brilliant guy. It was good for her because of the competition between them. There were only a couple of times she was able to score higher on a test. They took Calc 3 together one summer for fun………..yikes. They both had their pick of grad schools and he went to Stanford rather than Harvard.
They’re still friends and still competing………..haha. He was definitely not a ladies man though…….classic nerd and very awkward socially. I find really bright people fascinating. Our son had twins for his HS competition who were off the charts IQ wise. It was good for him as well but tough to always come in third. One’s a doctor and one’s a lawyer. The doctor flunked out of UCLA the first time……………bad attitude.
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James Taranto points out a fascinating double standard.
On a related subject, the Department of Health and Human Services blog features a post by Secretary Kathleen Sebelius titled “A Mom’s Trusted Voice on Health Insurance” (hat tip: Jeryl Bier):
As a mother and grandmother, I know how a mom’s voice is critical to maintaining the health of her family–and that’s true even after her kids have grown up into young adults. And as a trusted voice in the lives of their children, moms can play a vital role in getting the word out about the exciting new options for affordable, quality health coverage becoming available this fall for their children and other families in their communities.
As Latifa Lyles, acting director of the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau, wrote on her blog the other day: “Not even the most powerful woman . . ., it seems, enjoys any protection from gender typecasting, from simplistic attitudes about how women should project authority and otherwise conduct themselves in the workplace. . . . As discriminatory practices and negative gender stereotyping continue to take their toll on women, the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau – the only government agency whose mission is to advocate for the economic advancement of women – is more important than ever before.”
http://m.us.wsj.com/articles/a/SB10001424127887323477604578654001297158918?mg=reno64-wsj
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“…the Labor Department’s Women’s Bureau – the only government agency whose mission is to advocate for the economic advancement of women – is more important than ever before.”
Assume that conclusion is self serving and disregard it.
Is the premise – discriminatory practices and negative gender stereotyping continue to take their toll on women – true? I see anecdotal evidence that it is not true among lawyers. I see anecdotal evidence that it is true in the construction industry. Is there some combination of statistical evidence and anecdotal experience that compels the conclusion that the premise is valid? What trades and industries are most affected? How recently have any of us seen it – and how recently have Kelley and Lulu experienced it? Is Yellen an example of it? Is Mayor Feelemup in SD an example?
What are our guidelines? For me, guidelines would be both bright line – e.g., the known and objectively better qualified woman was passed over for promotion – and more subtle, but as a defense lawyer I would destroy the subtle indicators as “big deal so what” and “no harm no foul”. So professionally, I would only be looking at bright line stuff.
BTW, I think the mere threat of gender discrimination lawsuits is a more effective prophylactic than the DOL’s women’s bureau. But I don’t know how one would measure the DOL’s women’s bureau’s effectiveness. Not that it could not be done. I just don’t have the evidence or the tools to do it. And I don’t know any anecdotes, even, about how it ever helped anyone.
I am more interested in your experiences of the negative stereotyping of women harming their advancement in the workplace.
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mark:
Is Yellen an example of it?
Since no nomination has been made yet, I don’t think Yellen could be said to be an example at this point. I also think it is far more likely for her gender to be used as a factor in her favor than to her detriment.
But I don’t know how one would measure the DOL’s women’s bureau’s effectiveness.
Neither do I. I suspect that it cannot be measured.
BTW, I went to the DoL WB website, and it looks to me like it has been co-opted into the green lobby. There was this bizarre bit of eco propaganda:
In 2010 the Bureau marked its 90th anniversary and kicked off its year-long commemoration with First Lady Michelle Obama. In honor of this anniversary, a special logo was created for the Women’s Bureau. The logo’s four collars represents the past, present and future, of women’s jobs: pink (traditional jobs); blue (nontraditional jobs); white (professional jobs), and green (emerging higher paying green jobs).
“Green jobs” are a particular category of “women’s jobs” worthy of special note? Please. The other three at least have some nominal relationship to the ostensible purpose of the organization. The last is just a transparent pander to a totally unrelated political movement.
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Pink (traditional jobs)………….haha. Isn’t that stereotyping in itself? I think it’s individual women themselves who have done most of the heavy lifting by challenging the powers that be in a given industry. Glass ceilings and all that.
Things are much different than when I was a young woman.
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Pink collar jobs were secretarial.Are there any of those left? I’ve done my own typing for years. Our company still has a receptionist but they are few and far between nowadays.
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I know guys who can’t do email. serious. they have their admins print it out.
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http://www.cracked.com/blog/5-apologies-to-cops-who-beat-me-up-no-reason/
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Do any of you know this news source? Has it proven reliable? I was sent this link:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2013/06/03/Pentagon-Has-No-Idea-What-108K-Contractors-Are-Doing
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Probably. See here:
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Special-Features/about-us.aspx
This is probably key:
“The Fiscal Times has been organized as a limited liability company (LLC) and is owned and funded by Peter G. Peterson.”
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fiscal_Times
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Krugman as usual can’t admit that someone else got something right that he didn’t:
“August 8, 2013, 9:48 am
What Janet Yellen — And Everyone Else — Got Wrong
…
In short, getting the bubble right, while no small thing, wasn’t enough; Yellen (and many other people, myself included) underestimated the fragility of the financial system, but also the importance of household debt, and, above all, the foolishness of policymakers.”
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/what-janet-yellen-and-everyone-else-got-wrong/
The economists who got this right when he and Yellen didn’t were Reinhart and Rogoff with “This Time is Different”, but he’ll never admit that.
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Good David Dayen piece on Obama’s MBS plan.
http://www.newrepublic.com/article/114228/president-obama-fannie-mae-and-freddie-mac-plan
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Thanks for the background on Fiscal Times. I should have looked it up but was busy at the time. The article was revealing. I just wondered if it was likely accurate.
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Teh Krugman is a douche.
http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/NaoaSQADmo6cbcelny0VWM/The-paranoid-style-in-economics.html
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Outsanding article on Obama and the a-constitutional administrative state from Kevin Williamson. It’s difficult to pick an excerpt to post here, since it is chock full of interesting and worthy observations, but the conclusion will have to suffice:
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