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 | 1850.2 | 5.2 | 0.28% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3191.8 | 14.1 | 0.44% |
| Oil (WTI) | 102.6 | 0.0 | 0.00% |
| LIBOR | 0.228 | 0.000 | 0.11% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 79.79 | 0.038 | 0.05% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.71% | 0.03% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 105.4 | -0.2 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 104.1 | -0.5 | |
| RPX Composite Real Estate Index | 200.7 | -0.2 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.48 |
Stocks are up on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down. Alcoa kicked off earnings season last night with better than expected EPS.
Mortgage applications fell 1.6% last week. Purchases rose 2.7% but refis fell 4.9%. Refis are now roughly half of all mortgages after being over 60% not too long ago. The 30 year fixed rate mortgage was unch’d during the week.
Later on today, we will get the minutes from the March FOMC meeting. There could be some volatility in the bond market around this release, so be careful. The street will be looking for the color on the “as soon as six months” statement – is it just one lone hawk who thinks we could start tightening in just over a year, or do other voting members share that sentiment?
Mortgage credit availability expanded in March, according to the MBA. Availability is expanding in the jumbo space. While credit availability is better than a year ago, we are still far away from any sense of normalcy, let along the go-go days of 2005-2007. The fact that the availability in credit is really only expanding in the jumbo space must be giving the CRA junkies in Washington conniptions.
Good backgrounder on the non-bank servicers. The pace of growth of the non-bank servicing sector is “scaring regulators, who see it as a threat to their four-year effort to improve how banks handle loans in default.” Hence NYS AG Eric Schneiderman has blocked a MSR deal between Wells and Ocwen. Not sure why the New York State Attorney General thinks banking regulation is his bailiwick, but I guess he is following the model Spitzer used – bash the financial sector all the way to the Governor’s Mansion.
Speaking of banks, it looks like they are going to need to raise $68 billion in capital to meet stricter standards, although most banks will likely meet the new standards by retaining earnings or restructuring some assets. We will hear from Wells and JP Morgan later this week.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Enough with insurer bashing. Time to go after the real money with the providers.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/data-uncover-nations-top-medicare-billers/2014/04/08/9101a77e-bf39-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html?hpid=z1
Same piece headlines the NYT as well:
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Mars is buying Proctor and Gamble’s pet food business. M & iaMs coming to a store near you.
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Is Mars still privately held?
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yes…
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By those weird, supersecritive old brothers?
#ProbablytheKochshunh?
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I remember all the idiots at PL defending the CBO #’s for the shit sandwich we’ve had forced down our throats.
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/reversal-of-medicare-advantage-cuts-could-be-ominous-sign-for-obamacare/article/2546963
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I was in room with Sen. Warren today. Please try not to be too envious.
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nova:
Is she as dumb in real life as the character she plays in the Senate?
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Well, here’s a “knock me over with a feather.”
Ninety-six doctors measured the value of my life by how much the government is willing to pay for my preventive visit.
http://www.ebony.com/wellness-empowerment/when-doctors-slam-the-doors-on-the-newly-insured-304#ixzz2yOYB4ple
We just keep disappointing the people we’re giving free shit too.
When will we be worthy?
Personally, I blame Big Tonsil and Big Amputation. Maybe she should just take a pain pill? We can’t provide healthcare on just someone’s Joi de vie can we?
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Woah Scott, back off! I’m the one who hates chicks here.
Nova, how dumb is she? Patty Murray dumb?
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Doesn’t he bang underage Domincan hookers as well?
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Well, she was a few seats over for Sen. Sanders. so the calibration on the P.K.E. Meter was way off. so much socialist energy in the room.
It was a hearing on primary care workforce trends/shortages. and what to do about it. spoiler alert: free
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“ScottC, on April 9, 2014 at 11:56 am said:
nova:
Is she as dumb in real life as the character she plays in the Senate?”
I highly doubt that. Sen. Warren adopts the messaging tactics that she does because they work with her target audience.
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jnc:
I highly doubt that. Sen. Warren adopts the messaging tactics that she does because they work with her target audience.
By which you mean she isn’t actually dumb enough to believe the stupid things she says? That is probably true.
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but what JNC said. this aren’t stupid people. mostly.
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^^ i’m keeping the typo.
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JNC, if you have the time, I need to tap out of a free speech debate on the PL. i’d like to tag you in.
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FFS, she’s a woman!
Enough said.
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I’ve been banging this drum for a long time.
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BTW, I meant to ask this yesterday…is there anyone else here who agrees with Mich that the notion that life begins at conception is a an unreasonable thing to believe? To be clear, I’m not wondering if you believe it, only if you agree that anyone who does believe it is being unreasonable.
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Where else would it start? Whether it is worth of protection or not is a separate issue.
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nova:
Where else would it start?
I really have no idea. Conception seems to me by far the most logical point.
This author of a biology textbook called “Life” lists 17 possible points (Although the 17th is obviously a joke, and 2 come even before conception.) She personally chooses point 14, which is week 22 after conception, but it is notable that she ultimately is answering a question that is different (in a subtle but very important way) from the one she originally posed and is ostensibly offering answers to.
She sets it up by saying: “So here are my selections of times at which a biologist might argue a human organism is alive.”
And then she ends by offering: “My answer? #14. The ability to survive outside the body of another sets a practical limit on defining when a sustainable human life begins.”
Notice the subtle shift from when something is “alive” to when sustainable life outside the body of another begins. BTW, as I pointed out a long time ago in a debate here with Mike, her very language points out that her stated answer is wrong. The concept of “survive” presupposes the existence of life. It is impossible to even consider whether something can “survive” under given conditions unless the fact of life is already assumed before the conditions are introduced. Clearly if sustainable life outside the body of another begins at 22 weeks, life itself necessarily has already begun at some point prior to that.
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@ScottC: “BTW, I meant to ask this yesterday…is there anyone else here who agrees with Mich that the notion that life begins at conception is a an unreasonable thing to believe?”
I think it’s as reasonable as thinking life begins at birth, at least. I mean, do we believe the computer is on after we’ve pressed the power button? It may take a few minutes to boot up, but we know where it’s headed, and we say: I just turned it on.
What that should mean policy wise is a different question.
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Kevin:
What that should mean policy wise is a different question.
Yes it is.
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BTW, Kevin, I like your computer analogy.
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“novahockey, on April 9, 2014 at 12:45 pm said:
JNC, if you have the time, I need to tap out of a free speech debate on the PL. i’d like to tag you in.”
I saw it and added my two cents at the end.
“Some animals are more equal than others”
No one tops Orwell for calling out totalitarian arguments made from the left.
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“ScottC, on April 9, 2014 at 1:52 pm said:
BTW, I meant to ask this yesterday…is there anyone else here who agrees with Mich that the notion that life begins at conception is a an unreasonable thing to believe?”
I don’t think it’s the proper framing. I think what both of you are really arguing is when do rights attach, not how does biology work.
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jnc:
I don’t think it’s the proper framing. I think what both of you are really arguing is when do rights attach, not how does biology work.
Nope, not me. I am not referring to the philosophical start of moral life, but rather the biological start of actual life. One cannot answer the more difficult philosophical question without first addressing the basic biological question.
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J,
There’s multiple answers for when rights attach. The right to vote doesn’t attach until 18 The right to be President not until 40 (I think.) So, the attachment of rights is a process that occurs as a life ages. I guess the root question re abortion would be when does the fetus have a compelling right not to be aborted? Ever? After viability (that’s debated still, viability, and who’s financially responsible?). However, at what point does the clock start ticking?
I think the clock, life, starts ticking at conception, but even if someone wants to say a different time, even after birth, I don’t think that’s an unreasonable position. I disagree with it however.
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Just read a hilarious Twitter exchange between Hack Sargent, AllahPundit and Phillip Klien. Hack is desperate for any chance, No matter how remote, for R to pass IR.
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For R to pass IR?
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Let’s beat a dead horse.
I happened to be reading today about Tom Wadell, who founded the “Gay Games.” In the early 80s he met and started a relationship with his then-latest identified lover. About the same time, he met and became friends with a lesbian, and they decided to have a baby. They had their baby in 1983 and then married in 1985, strictly for legal reasons. Daughter was shuttled back and forth between mom and dad (and presumably his lover). He was diagnosed with AIDs in 1985 as well and died in 1987 (Reagan’s fault, obviously). An old article by Dick Schapp gushes over how much Wadell’s gay lover at the end loved Wadell’s daughter.
Tragic, right? And gay marriage is supposed to be the necessary, just solution to this kind of “family” situation? So gays can fulfill their parental instinct, which unfortunately is detached from the necessary biological instinct? Gay marriage is a bizarro world.
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The Democrat war on the war on women keeps blowing up in their faces by the hour.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2014/04/09/phony-wage-gap-statistics-from-white-house-spur-a-backlash/
Let’s hope Obama keeps flying around the country saying he just doesn’t understand why Rs don’t want his daughters to be treated fairly. He’s Alan Grayson, just thinner and a more grating speaker.
Not to worry, though, Sargent says the R pushback will never work, since everyone knows they hate women.
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Behind the paywall, but finally an article in the WSJ making the point that I was making more than two years ago:
Then came Dodd-Frank. Stacked nearly a foot high when printed out, this incomprehensible bill affected my small business in ways that no one crafting it could ever have anticipated. Though the law is far too complex to parse here, one of its overall assumptions is rather simple: A derivative is a derivative is a derivative. Thus, the law considers a utility looking to hedge its long-term exposure to fluctuating gas prices, and the brokers who facilitate such deals, to be as much a threat to global order as cowboy credit-default-swap speculators stacking up insane leverage.
The law hit my brokerage firm with a number of new regulatory “reforms,” even though we were far removed from the epicenter of the 2008 collapse and incapable of posing systemic risk to the financial system.
His larger point is that although D/F is ostensibly designed to protect against TBTF banks, what it actually has made it very difficult for small firms to survive.
When I closed my firm, I was lucky enough not to have to worry much for my personal future, but I am apprehensive about the world that awaits my former employees, most of whom have families. I ask Chris Dodd and Barney Frank : What now for them? These are real people who now must navigate an economy that remains stagnant thanks in good part to a crushing piece of legislation.
Businesses come and go, succeed and fail. But this should come from market forces and innovation, not at the behest of a politically motivated and misguided Congress meddling in businesses it knows little about. Messrs. Dodd and Frank didn’t have a day of experience working in the private sector yet thought themselves qualified to sponsor one of the most transformative pieces of business legislation in history. Now these gentlemen are out of politics and presumably doing nicely in the private sector. Maybe from time to time they’re also getting an earful about what happens these days when small business runs up against big government. In my company’s case, maybe we were simply too small to succeed.
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qb:
The Democrat war on the war on women keeps blowing up in their faces by the hour.
I would imagine that thoughtful women would be offended by Obama’s apparent belief that women as a demographic are so stupid they will routinely fall for and get outraged by the phony 77 cents statistic.
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IR=Immigration Reform.
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Tax season. Once again, we confront twin realities. The total tax burden itself and the complexity of trying to compute income taxes are absolutely staggering.
It is Kafkaesque for a partner in a large, multistate law firm. I think it is virtually impossible for anyone to know what taxes we really owe. I just know it is a lot.
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qb:
I think it is virtually impossible for anyone to know what taxes we really owe.
Exactly. Which means that if they want to come after you, they can find a justification to do so. Law so complex it is impossible to follow leads to the destruction of the rule of law.
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jnc:
You might be interested in this, from yesterday’s WSJ.
Many investors and commentators think it’s about time the SEC got tougher on financial fraudsters and treated them more like common criminals. But policy makers and judges should think twice about whether this trend of quasi-criminal administrative prosecution is a good idea. It isn’t, for at least two reasons.
First, administrative agencies like the SEC were never intended to become arms of law enforcement. They were created to regulate, not prosecute. The SEC was given no power to punish anyone for the first 50 years of its existence. It could sue to prevent wrongdoing, and sometimes to wrest illicit profits from fraudsters, but it couldn’t get penalties on top of that.
(snip)
[Second], based mostly on precedent established before the SEC had any power to punish, courts have exempted SEC prosecutions from many bedrock due-process protections taken for granted in criminal cases. The presumption of innocence, for example, is largely meaningless because the SEC can win by a mere “preponderance of the evidence” rather than proof beyond reasonable doubt. The right to remain silent is equally hollow because courts let the SEC treat silence as evidence of guilt.
For SEC defendants who can’t afford a good lawyer, tough luck, because there’s no right to have counsel appointed at government expense as there would be in a criminal prosecution. And even when the SEC loses after trial, double jeopardy doesn’t prevent it from trying to reverse the verdict or force a retrial, as it would a criminal prosecutor. Dodd-Frank made things even worse by expanding the SEC’s ability to impose draconian financial penalties in administrative proceedings that have lax evidentiary rules, no jury trial, and limited judicial oversight.
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I would imagine that thoughtful women would be offended by Obama’s apparent belief that women as a demographic are so stupid they will routinely fall for and get outraged by the phony 77 cents statistic.
Yes, surely. Obama’s target audience is not, however, thoughtful women.
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Republican accusations of sexism or racism always fall flat against Democrats. Just like Democratic accusations of being anti-business always fall flat against Republicans.
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It isn’t really so much an accusation of sexism as of being entirely full of crap and shameless peddlers of hypocritical and demogogic lies.
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Meh, it’s dumb broads (BIRM) making the accusations anyway. Who’s gives a shit what they think?
Seriously?
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Oh, you sexist bagger, you…
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I’ve never read anything more sexist.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/ruth-marcus-democrats-equal-pay-demagoguery/2014/04/09/59425640-c037-11e3-b574-f8748871856a_story.html
From a DB to boot!
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@ScottC: “Exactly. Which means that if they want to come after you, they can find a justification to do so. Law so complex it is impossible to follow leads to the destruction of the rule of law.”
We have the treasury of a monarchy. In essence, the correct answer to how much we owe in taxes will always be: you owe whatever we say that you owe.
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“he total tax burden itself and the complexity of trying to compute income taxes are absolutely staggering.”
$700. That’s the check i’m going to write to the accountant. And my return isn’t that complicated. But complicated enough that I’m not comfortable doing it or relying on a software program.
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Tying two thoughts together with a dollop of a third one – my wife, the CPA with MS in taxation, left her partnership this year where she was billing mid six figure numbers and with two other partners supporting about 20 employees – she was taking home @150K. She picked her 25 best clients, took some others who begged, and is officing at home. This tax season she will barely get to six figure billing, but net high five figures. She chose to cut her workload by 2/3 and her take home by 40%. She is very happy and has not thought the “gap” was an externally imposed reality for about 30 years now. Why is she happy? Because for the last five years she has been absolutely killing herself to support a small firm and now she can even go for a bike ride during tax season. Maybe a prototypical male in her position would not give up 40% of his net in order to work 1/3 as hard.
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@ScottC: “I would imagine that thoughtful women would be offended by Obama’s apparent belief that women as a demographic are so stupid they will routinely fall for and get outraged by the phony 77 cents statistic.”
Then you are only imagining active conservative and Republican women.
Generally (and this is not gender-specific) people are responsive to any argument that suggest they are getting a raw deal. It is an inner dialog for most people, that they are (in some form) a victim, or are not getting their fare share. So it’s easy to believe something asserted without evidence or context if it says: your life isn’t fair, bad people made it that way. Context of active working years? Or negotiation? Hell, I’m constantly telling my wife to push for money and she refuses. “I need more flexibility, they can pay me anything,” and they don’t end up paying more money (real) while the flexibility turns out to be largely fake.
I’m not saying my wife is an avatar for all women, but I’m pretty sure more men negotiate for better compensation more actively than a majority of women. Thus, they get paid more on average. There are no job positions where there is a set compensation that a women gets paid less. There could potentially the same job with a different classification, but that would leave the employer open to lawsuits, and would be pointless.
There comes a point where, unless all women behave exactly as men in the workplace you’re not going to move that average. Or, I suppose, if the government mandates what every body is paid in every job, and nobody is allowed to enter contracts that they negotiate themselves or through an agent. Which seems like an awful idea to move a largely bullshit statistic.
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Kevin:
Generally (and this is not gender-specific) people are responsive to any argument that suggest they are getting a raw deal. It is an inner dialog for most people, that they are (in some form) a victim, or are not getting their fare share.
Right…they are reacting instinctively or emotionally rather than thoughtfully. That was the distinction I was drawing by using the qualifier “thoughtful”.
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@ScottC: Right…they are reacting instinctively or emotionally rather than thoughtfully. That was the distinction I was drawing by using the qualifier “thoughtful”.
Then “thoughtful” about that topic. I know plenty of people who are thoughtful about many things, but when it comes to feeling they are victim because of race or gender or whatever (office politics!) all thought ceases. 😉
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“but I’m pretty sure more men negotiate for better compensation more actively than a majority of women.”
I think that’s half the equation. I make it a point to try to a few legit interviews each year. Just to see what the market is doing. How can you negotiate a raise if you don’t know what the market is doing?
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Or, I suppose, if the government mandates what every body is paid in every job, and nobody is allowed to enter contracts that they negotiate themselves or through an agent. Which seems like an awful idea to move a largely bullshit statistic.
The left would be delighted to do that.
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“The left would be delighted to do that.”
We could put the whole country on the GS system.
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We could put the whole country on the GS system.
obama would do that in a heartbeat.
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Covetedness.
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FWIW, the GS was a big reason why I left the government. It was unbelievably demoralizing to know that effort and ability counted for nothing.
“Well, I generally come in at least fifteen minutes late, ah, I use the side door – that way Lumbergh can’t see me, heh – after that I sorta space out for an hour. Yeah, I just stare at my desk, but it looks like I’m working. I do that for probably another hour after lunch too, I’d say in a given week I probably only do about fifteen minutes of real, actual, work.”
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In some ways, I think being Dagwood Bumstead would be great. I would get to work at 6:00 am, leave at 2:00, get paid to work out, sounds great.
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The following quote annoys the hell out of me:
To accomplish anything — to the meet the challenges of our present and future — we’ll need a measure of civic solidarity, a common belief that we’re all Americans, with legitimate claims on the bounty of the country. Jamelle Bouie in Slate.
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Dagwood also is with Blondie.
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NoVA – do you think Blondie is hawt or just a PITA?
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i honestly haven’t read it in years, so I don’t recall the PITA. and blondes aren’t at the top of my list. maybe it’s the PITA that makes her hawt.
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I own land in this libertarian paradise with no gummint. I really do. Just paid my tax bill. $6.
http://www.2peaksmesa.com/
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