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 | 1688.7 | -2.1 | -0.12% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 2843.7 | 2.1 | 0.07% |
| Oil (WTI) | 106.3 | -0.5 | -0.51% |
| LIBOR | 0.263 | -0.001 | -0.38% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 81.74 | -0.031 | -0.04% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.71% | -0.01% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104.3 | 0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103.4 | 0.1 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.39 |
Markets are down small after wholesale inflation came in lower than expected. Mortgage Applications fell 5% last week. Bonds and MBS are up small.
Mortgage Apps fell 4.7% last week, with the purchase index decreasing 5% and the refi index dropping 4%. Refis were 63% of all applications, with 35% of the refis being HARP. Surprising result given that mortgage rates fell last week, albeit by only a few basis points.
The Producer Price Index showed low inflation at the wholesale level. Now that QE4EVA is officially done, inflation numbers matter again. If they are too low, then the Fed may re-think the timing of their exit strategy. The Fed fears deflation more than anything, because if prices are falling in the context of zero percent interest rates, that means real (inflation-adjusted) rates are rising. And that problem has bedeviled the Japanese for almost 20 years. In related news, 65% of all economists expect the Fed to begin tapering QE at the September meeting. The expected change? Purchases go from $85 billion to $75 billion.
Remember all of that widespread mortgage fraud? Turns out the Obama administration made it up, or at the very least wildly exaggerated it. The Administration was forced to reduce the number of people criminally charged from 530 to 107. Victim losses were reduced to $95 million from $1 billion, and the number of victims were cut to 17,185 from 73,000.
Why does Obama want Larry Summers for the Fed, when he can make a groundbreaking choice with eminently qualified Janet Yellen? According to a note from Mizuho Chief Economist Steven Ricchiuto, it is because Summers is more of a political guy who will support activist fiscal policy. In other words, Obama wants an ally at the Fed to increase pressure on Congress for more public-works spending (in order to dole out projects to help boost vulnerable candidates in 2014). Interesting take, and makes more sense than anything else I have heard.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Maureen Dowd on Summers:
Summers past statements on the mathematical prowess of women will come back to haunt him in some way sooner or later.
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yello:
Does the fact that we’ve had no female Fed chairs and no female Treasury secretaries mean that Summers was right when he said women are less likely to have the kind of brains that would allow them to get top jobs requiring math skills?
He never said that.
edit…corked by Brent
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Summers was misinterpreted… Summers was saying that the standard deviation of men’s math scores were higher than women. In other words, the averages were the same, but the dispersion of men was wider. Which means more men at the extremes (both high and low). In academia, we are concerned with only 1 extreme (the extreme right tail) and the preponderance of men in the right tail explains the difference.
So male and female means (mus) are the same, but their standard deviations (sigmas) are different.
He wasn’t saying that men are better at math than women…
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He wasn’t saying that men are better at math than women…
It seems to me he was saying that the brightest men are better at math than the brightest women. Whether that is an innate genetic trait or a cultural artifact could be debated endlessly. I’m not sure that is a limb a person in the realm of public policy should go out on but he did.
On today’s Slate Cultural Gabfest (inexplicably not online yet), they interviewed the author of the What is it like to be a woman in philosophy? blog which was founded as a booster site to encourage women to enter the field but quickly became a running litany of the rampant sexual harassment that goes on in philosophy departments. Such behavior on the part of established largely male faculties would go a long way to explaining why there are so few women in the philosophy field without resorting to pseudo-scientific bell curves.
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Obama wants an ally at the Fed to increase pressure on Congress for more public-works spending
I’m not buying that at all.
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I don’t think obama wants an “independent” Fed Chairman, he wants a political one who will take direction. Yellen probably believes that the Fed should remain above politics, which makes sense – she has spent her career there. Summers is a Fed outsider and isn’t steeped in that culture.
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Brent, I agree Obama wants someone to take direction but the direction of public works is not one that a Summers will take. He’s too much of a Rubinite for that I think.
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He never said that.
I know. You are referencing my quote of Maureen Dowd. She is reflecting the common perception of Summer’s views.
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yello:
She is reflecting the common perception of Summer’s views.
She is perpetuating a falsehood. Not surprising, but worth noting.
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“It seems to me he was saying that the brightest men are better at math than the brightest women. ”
No, he was saying that the majority of people at the highest end of math ability are men. Which is correct. He could have also said that the majority of people at the lowest end of math ability are men. Which is also true.
I think Summers was disliked by the Harvard faculty and they willfully misinterpreted this to use as a weapon against summers.
And MoDo wouldn’t know a sigma or a mu if it bit her in the ass…..
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Be very careful Brent, you’re challenging a deeply entrenched narrative and bordering on misogeny.
Walk it back my friend. Everyone *knows* what Summer’s said.
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The funny thing is that the Left already has so much invested in Yellen (especially Dr. Cowbell) that they can’t switch back to Summers, which makes it less likely they will get what they want, which is a massive Keynsian public works program.
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And MoDo wouldn’t know a sigma or a mu if it bit her in the ass…..
Agreed.
massive Keynsian public works program.
Which power of the Fed other than the bully pulpit would make that happen?
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I’m not. Keynesian, but putting that aside, how do the advocates of public works projects get around the years/decades long environmental restrictions and inevitable blockage of most of the programs? The environmental Malthusians are not going to stand aside.
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Also, where does the money to finance environmental litigation, er, Public Works come from?
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“massive Keynsian public works program.
Which power of the Fed other than the bully pulpit would make that happen?”
That’s all it would be… obama can point to the the Fed Chairman and say: everyone agrees with this – Republicans are anti-economics
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Brent
which is a massive Keynsian public works program.
Do you seriously think Summers as Fed Chief would either be able or willing to do this? How is that even within the power of the Fed?
I just happen to think that Yellen’s experience is preferred over Summer’s. Either way I don’t think it matters that much.
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“Also, where does the money to finance environmental litigation, er, Public Works come from?”
He won’t need it… He wants (a) another excuse to raise taxes on the rich, and (b) a way to dole out money to vulnerable (D) districts in 2014….He is betting that the promise of future funding will be enough to keep some vulnerable incumbents in office.
(Vote for me – we are supposed to get a federally funded bridge, and who knows what would happen to that if this Republican were to win)
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Everyone *knows* what Summer’s said.
We may never know exactly what he said since the talk was unrecorded and technically off the record.
Here is a reasonable discussion of what he may have said. They use what appears to be a direct quote.
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Fair enough Brent, I suspect that endless environmental litigation (unless it inhibits union projects) will be swept under the rug as well.
Yello,
I had no idea how horrifically sexist that speech was. Wow, to paraphrase Jack Burton, “[He] really shook the pillars of heaven.”
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““There is relatively clear evidence that whatever the difference in means—which can be debated—there is a difference in the standard deviation and variability of a male and female population,””
Exactly what I am saying… The difference in means may not be statistically significant to reject the null hypothesis, which is the means are the same, but but the standard deviations ARE different. And differences in standard deviations matter, especially when we are talking about the extreme right and left tails…
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And differences in standard deviations matter, especially when we are talking about the extreme right and left tails
From the article I linked to above:
If there is some measurable, repeatable difference in the standard deviation it would be interesting to know if it is innate or cultural. My wife used to teach gifted elementary school students where the math population was 50/50 based on ostensibly a one sigma difference but in reality after politics and parental pressure were applied was about 25% of the population. But she would track her students afterwards. Somewhere in middle school the girls would drop math like a turd. It becomes uncool for girls to be smart.
My son was in a special math program in middle school which was two or three sigmas out on the test they used to screen for it. Out of perhaps 2000 eligible students, maybe ten or twenty made the program. The class was overwhelmingly male and at least 50% Asian. So Summer’s observation is anecdotally validated in my experience. But that still doesn’t explain the “why?”
So much for one side being more fact based and in favor of open debate.
I’m all for open debate but Summers statements were an unforced error. To say something that could be misconstrued as women being dumber than men at a forum about increasing female participation and success was just stupid. It came off as insulting and paternalistic to his target audience. Smart guy, lousy politician.
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Here’s the column itself:
“I’m not sure that is a limb a person in the realm of public policy should go out on but he did.”
So much for one side being more fact based and in favor of open debate.
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“lmsinca, on August 14, 2013 at 8:05 am said:
Obama wants an ally at the Fed to increase pressure on Congress for more public-works spending
I’m not buying that at all”
Another way to put this is that Obama wants a team player as the head of the Fed and that I have a very easy time believing.
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I have no inside information but I think Summers got to dominate BHO’s economic advisors in the first term b/c BHO bought his particular brand of self confidence, or arrogance, some would say. I doubt BHO thinks he can control Summers – that would seem delusional. But I think he may be Summers’ disciple now.
I favor Yellen [over Summers] because she actually knows the FR system quite well and her experience indicates a certain level of prudence.
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I favor Yellen [over Summers] because she actually knows the FR system quite well and her experience indicates a certain level of prudence.
This seems to be the consensus which sends everybody running to theories why Summers would even be in the running. Maybe he is a much better politician than I am giving him credit for.
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Babes should pick up the check once in a while, but they don’t.
Scientific proof we are still far away from that feminist utopia sensitive new age guys like me have been working towards.
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“If there is some measurable, repeatable difference in the standard deviation it would be interesting to know if it is innate or cultural.”
Aspberger’s Syndrome is mainly a male phenomenon…
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Aspberger’s Syndrome is mainly a male phenomenon
And bulimia is mainly a female one.
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“And bulimia is mainly a female one.”
Which may explain Haagen Dasz sales, but not differences in math scores at the high and low levels…
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Babes should pick up the check once in a while, but they don’t.
I paid my way until we got married, now I make him pay for everything and save my pay checks for fun stuff. It’s all the same money though so it doesn’t really matter. I just think it’s funny.
Our girls are very independent though and pay their way. The youngest makes quite a bit more than her boyfriend so she actually pays more than half of most expenses.
I think it’s kind of sweet and chivalrous though for men to offer to pay for the expenses of dating.
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“I think it’s kind of sweet and chivalrous though for men to offer to pay for the expenses of dating.”
Unless there’s an explicit quid pro quo. Then it’s illegal prostitution, which I still don’t get.
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Then it’s illegal prostitution
Whoa. That’s the first time I heard dating called that. Not every date ends in the bedroom anyway. I’m really getting old.
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Just noting the continuum upon which men picking up the tab is on. It’s either chivalry or illegal, depending on the expectations.
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Re: picking up the check. If I invite him and pick the restaurant, I pick up the check. If he invites me/picks the restaurant, I expect him to pick up the check. If we just decide to get together for dinner because we’d like to chat I think we split the check.
Just my thoughts.
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Which may explain Haagen Dasz sales, but not differences in math scores at the high and low levels…
Causation/correlation. Are people on ‘The Spectrum’ more likely to be math geniuses or is that a Hollywood myth?
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Aspbergers is associated with very high (and very low) levels of math functioning. Since males are more likely to have it, that would explain the difference in standard deviations between male and female mathematical ability..
I don’t get why this is so controversial..
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Brent:
I don’t get why this is so controversial.
Any grievance industry requires an object of grievance in order to thrive, otherwise it dies. The relevant question for those invested in such an industry (either emotionally or financially) isn’t whether something is controversial, but rather whether it can be made to appear controversial.
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Personally, I think that if you’re going to protest that Larry Summers never said that women aren’t as good as men at math, then you should be willing to admit that the right wing propaganda machine’s twisting of President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” statement is essentially the same thing.
And vice versa, of course.
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“right wing propaganda machine’s twisting of President Obama’s “you didn’t build that” statement is essentially the same thing.”
obama’s statement may have been twisted, but it betrays the progressive mindset: if you use public goods then you are a hypocrite if support limited government
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That’s the first time I heard dating called that
You need to spend more time surfing men’s rights/pick-up artist websites.
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yello
You need to spend more time surfing men’s rights/pick-up artist websites.
Hahaha, yeah that’s not gonna happen.
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