Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | Percent | |
| S&P Futures | 1875.2 | 7.1 | 0.38% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3175.2 | 11.2 | 0.35% |
| Oil (WTI) | 103.1 | 0.8 | 0.75% |
| LIBOR | 0.227 | -0.001 | -0.33% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.15 | 0.107 | 0.13% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.55% | 0.04% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 106.3 | -0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 105.5 | -0.1 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.17 |
Markets are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are down. Sorry for the lack of blog posts the last two days, but I was at the MBA Secondary Conference, and there really wasn’t much to talk about anyway. We had no economic data on Monday or Tuesday.
Mortgage applications increased .9% last week. Purchases fell 2.8% while refis increased 3.8%. This is a pretty disappointing number given that the 10 year bond yield fell by 10 basis points and mortgage rates fell 5 – 6 bps. Refis accounted for 52% of loans, and ARMs were 8.1%.
Later on today, we will get the minutes from the April FOMC meeting. I don’t anticipate anything earth-shattering, but I will be interested to see if the big jump in March activity was a one-time event. Certainly some of the April data (industrial production, capacity utilization etc) has been disappointing. I also want to see what they say about housing, especially credit availability.
Speaking of the Fed, there is a lot going on over the next few days, with many speakers, the Stan Fischer confirmation hearings, and the minutes. Hawk Charles Plosser warned that if the economy improves as forecast, the current taper pace may be too slow.
The MBA Secondary Conference ends today, and it seems like the mood was a little brighter than previous years, despite the difficult conditions in the mortgage business. Non-QM loans are being rolled out strictly as a portfolio product for a few lenders, but there is no talk of securitization or anything like that. The first time homebuyer is still a focus for Washington, and non-bank servicers were put on notice that New York State isn’t going away.
Retailer earnings reports are rolling in, and as we have seen, it has been a tale of two markets, with the luxury end (think Tiffany’s) outperforming the discounters (think Target and Wal Mart). In home improvement land, the Home Despot and Lowe’s both missed earnings. Generally, retailers seem to be missing. Tomorrow we will hear from bellwethers Gap and Best Buy. Again, keep in mind that there will be an asterisk with these results as poor weather in the Northeast and the Midwest depressed traffic early in the quarter.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Have we hit the point where the most recent VA horrors are a phony scandal? Gotta protect government and the alter of SP, right?
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But this is good money. Like Sheldon Adelson money.
Jesus you fucking Baggers are stupid.
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The first paragraph from the Pennsylvania court’s decision to redefine marriage:
Today, certain citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania are not guaranteed the right to marry the person they love. Nor does Pennsylvania recognize the marriages of other couples who have wed elsewhere. Hoping to end this injustice, eleven courageous lesbian and gay couples, one widow, and two teenage children of one of the aforesaid couples have come together as plaintiffs and asked this Court to declare that all Pennsylvanians have the right to marry the person of their choice and consequently, that the Commonwealth’s laws to the contrary are unconstitutional. We now join the twelve federal district courts across the country which, when confronted with these inequities in their own states, have concluded that all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage.
And here I thought that legal disputes were supposed to be settled by objective, disinterested, third-party judges applying the law, not moralizing, self-righteous partisans. Silly me.
I really don’t know how anyone who respects the role the judiciary is supposed to play in our system can’t be both embarrassed and outraged by such blatantly partisan treacle masquerading as a legal opinion.
BTW, just out of curiosity, how do two teenage children of someone who is gay possibly qualify for standing to sue the state over its definition of marriage?
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Contemplate the level of corruption here.
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Still,
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/article/2544580
<. SP
AmIRight?
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What horseshit.
Impossible.
Why lie?
This is particularly moronic.
Again, impossible. He’s knowingly lying. Why?
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Hmmm.
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So, in PA then, father can marry daughter.
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McWing:
So, in PA then, father can marry daughter.
If, as is claimed, “all Pennsylvanians have the right to marry the person of their choice” and “all couples deserve equal dignity in the realm of civil marriage”, that is the unavoidable conclusion.
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Because SP.
https://twitter.com/DrewMTips/status/469138776686460928
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What does this say to you?
https://twitter.com/freddoso/status/469134475985575938
Make a case that the VA exists to serve veterans. I’ll wait.
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And here I thought that legal disputes were supposed to be settled by objective, disinterested, third-party judges applying the law, not moralizing, self-righteous partisans. Silly me.
That first paragraph indeed is a doozy. Another tinpot dictator in robes who thinks of himself as writing prose for the ages.
BTW, just out of curiosity, how do two teenage children of someone who is gay possibly qualify for standing to sue the state over its definition of marriage?
Without reading it, I’ll take a guess that they were held to have standing by reason of the terrible, awful, stigmatizing, traumatizing, unbearable psychic injury they daily receive from having unmarried “parents.”
Of course, one of the inexplicable things about that argument is that there are millions of children of single parents. And children of parents living together but unmarried by choice. If they have some right to have married parents, do they have the right to compel their parents to marry? What if one is dead or already married?
In the homosexual context, however, there is no such things as “children of one of the aforesaid couples.” They might be children of one of the pair. But they aren’t children of the other. The whole thing is an exercise in fantasy and fiction and unacknowledged assumptions. Intellectual cheating. The first sentence alone can’t be made sense of without assuming the result that one can marry a person of the same sex. The radicals still have no way around that problem.
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qb
The first sentence alone can’t be made sense of without assuming the result that one can marry a person of the same sex.
Actually, the ruling doesn’t even affect the claim. Despite the ruling there will remain certain citizens of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania who are not guaranteed the right to marry the person they love. Bigamy laws prevent a person from marrying the person they love if either of them is already married. Incest laws (which apply not just to sexual relations but to marriage) prevent a person from marrying a whole slew of other people they might love, including McWing’s aforementioned father and daughter.
There is no logic flowing from the notion of rights that requires the acceptance of SSM that does not also require acceptance of things that the SSM crowd themselves reject. Apart from the further perversion of the constitution necessary for SSM advocates to win their policy preferences in the courts rather than democratically, to me the most irritating thing about this issue is the blatant dishonesty/obtuseness of the legal arguments made on behalf of SSM.
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Redefining marriage as the courts have done is going to present more legal problems. For example, the following is what Pennsylvania law says about marrying blood relatives:
Marriage to relatives.–No marriage license may be issued to applicants within the prohibited degrees of consanguinity which are as follows:
A man may not marry his mother.
A man may not marry the sister of his father.
A man may not marry the sister of his mother.
A man may not marry his sister.
A man may not marry his daughter.
A man may not marry the daughter of his son or daughter.
A man may not marry his first cousin.
A woman may not marry her father.
A woman may not marry the brother of her father.
A woman may not marry the brother of her mother.
A woman may not marry her brother.
A woman may not marry her son.
A woman may not marry the son of her son or daughter.
A woman may not marry her first cousin.
All of which implies, after the recent ruling, that it is in fact perfectly legal in Pennsylvania for:
A man to marry his father.
A man to marry the brother of his father.
A man to marry the brother of his mother.
A man to marry his brother.
A man to marry his son.
A man to marry the son of his son or daughter.
A woman to marry her mother.
A woman to marry the sister of her father.
A woman to marry the sister of her mother.
A woman to marry her sister.
A woman to marry her daughter.
A woman to marry the daughter of her son or daughter.
First cousins of either sex, however, remain prohibited. Which all makes perfect sense, right?
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This argument should have gone no farther than:
“I demand the right to marry my same-sex boyfriend. ”
“There couldn’t be such a right, because marriage is a relationship that can only exist between a man and a woman.”
“But that means I am not allowed to marry whom I want to marry.”
“No, it means only that you don’t want to marry anyone you could marry. Everyone is allowed to marry.”
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Why would 1st cousins be prohibited from marrying? They to are allowed to marry whom they love. That is the standard now in PA.
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To take the “for the children” argument another step, if this is about some right of “the children” to have parents who are married, just like the other kids, and to be free of any potentially stigmatizing difference, how can SSM ever fulfill that right? By definition, it seems to me, it can’t. This is a classic case of the government trying to pass a law (or hand down a ruling) that dogs are cats, or giving people a right to fly.
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Why is this bad?
http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2014-05-19/millennials-spurning-silicon-valley-for-dallas-oil-patch.html
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Another faithless servant: Pennsylvania’s Governor says he will not appeal.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2014/05/21/pennsylvania-gov-corbett-says-hes-not-going-to-fight-ruling-allowing-gay-marriage/
He’s a RINO. I know nothing about him except that. This is eyewash for rubes:
“Given the high legal threshold set forth by Judge Jones in this case, the case is extremely unlikely to succeed on appeal,” Gov. Tom Corbett (R) said in a statement Wednesday. “Therefore, after review of the opinion and on the advice of my Commonwealth legal team, I have decided not to appeal Judge Jones’ decision.”
“As a Roman Catholic, the traditional teaching of my faith has not wavered,” he added. “I continue to maintain the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. My duties as Governor require that I follow the laws as interpreted by the Courts and make a judgment as to the likelihood of a successful appeal.”
What absolute nonsense. If you think these cases aren’t all rigged and judge-shopped, you are gullible. They think the public is stupid, and they are right.
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Uh…
The state had pinned its hopes on a March 2013 USC study that argued tapping the Monterey could create up to 2.8 million jobs by 2020 and add up to $25 billion to state and local tax revenue. “Californians drive 332 billion, that’s billion miles a year, fed almost entirely by oil products, so we have got to start hammering at the demand, as well as the sources of fossil fuel,” California Governor Jerry Brown told CNN Sunday.
http://www.businessinsider.com/impact-of-new-eia-california-2014-5
This is good news, right?
I mean for Gaia.
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https://twitter.com/AndrewStilesUSA/status/469229014000095234
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Sigh. MOAR Republican War on Women.
https://twitter.com/TPCarney/status/469298428699475968
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FWIW, vinegar and dish soap and clean up a beer spill.
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“make a judgment as to the likelihood of a successful appeal.”
QB – you can make an argument that this portion of the statement isn’t “absolute nonsense”. He’s read the writing on the wall.
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jnc:
He’s read the writing on the wall.
Perhaps, but still the Supremes should be forced to rule on it. Judicial malpractice shouldn’t be assumed. Force them to put that malpractice on the record.
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Loud and proud.
https://twitter.com/TPCarney/status/469299008180346881
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Scott, I think there’s already an appeal going up the chain. The question for him was did it serve a purpose to join in that was worth the cost.
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jnc:
Scott, I think there’s already an appeal going up the chain. The question for him was did it serve a purpose to join in that was worth the cost.
Fair enough. But in the unlikely event that the Supremes uphold the existing appeal, won’t the current ruling in the PA case still remain in force, thus necessitating PA to re-pass the law that has just been invalidated?
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I don’t think so, but I don’t know for sure. That’s a QB or Mark question.
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“Given the high legal threshold set forth by Judge Jones in this case, the case is extremely unlikely to succeed on appeal,” Gov. Tom Corbett (R) said in a statement Wednesday. “Therefore, after review of the opinion and on the advice of my Commonwealth legal team, I have decided not to appeal Judge Jones’ decision.”
This is nonsense because the “legal threshold set forth” by the judge–whatever that is really supposed to mean–is totally irrelevant to the likelihood of success on appeal. That entire opinion receives de novo review on appeal. In any of these cases, the ultimate likelihood of success on appeal can only be forecast based on what the Supreme Court is likely to do, and as grim as some us believe that forecast is, it is hardly a fait accompli. This statement is word salad. He is a coward and a RINO. I wouldn’t trust a word he says. Including the rest of these words:
“As a Roman Catholic, the traditional teaching of my faith has not wavered,” he added. “I continue to maintain the belief that marriage is between one man and one woman. My duties as Governor require that I follow the laws as interpreted by the Courts and make a judgment as to the likelihood of a successful appeal.”
His duty in a matter of this nature is hardly to give up that easily. His duty is to defend the law of the state. Moreover, SCOTUS has not yet accepted any of these cases for review, so can’t be excused on the assumption that Pennsylvania’s appeal is superfluous, plus it sometimes matters which case the court accepts and why.
If SCOTUS later holds that there is no right to same-sex marriage, this case could be considered abrogated or overruled. but it likely would leave a complicated situation.
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