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 | 1941.9 | 3.4 | 0.18% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3294.1 | 27.1 | 0.83% |
| Oil (WTI) | 102.9 | 0.5 | 0.45% |
| LIBOR | 0.23 | -0.001 | -0.43% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.34 | -0.029 | -0.04% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.54% | -0.04% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 106.6 | 0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 105.8 | 0.3 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.17 |
Stocks and bonds are rallying as the jobs report comes in more or less as expected.
Nonfarm payrolls increased by 217k in May, more or less in line with the 215k expectation. The unemployment rate was flat at 6.3% and the labor force participation rate remained stuck at its lows – 62.8%. Average Hourly Earnings increased by .2% and average weekly hours were flat at 34.5.
Mortgage credit eased in May, according to the MBA. The higher the index, the easier it is. When you look at the index on a historical basis, you can see credit is still tight.
Federal Reserve Bank of Minnesota Fed Head Narayana Kocherlakota said he believes the central bank will need to keep rates very low for a long time to come, largely due to the Fed’s failure to meet either goal of is dual mandate. The downside: inflated asset prices, high asset return volatility, and hieightened merger activity.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Brent –
The new sec rules – no co-location? No selling of direct access for flash traders to dark pools?
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Mark, have not looked at them yet..
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In all fairness, did anyone ever believe the CBO reports about Obamacare to begin with?
In its latest report on the law, the Congressional Budget Office said it is no longer possible to assess the overall fiscal impact of the law. That conclusion came as a surprise to some fiscal experts in Washington and is drawing concern. And without a clear picture of the law’s overall financing, it could make it politically easier to continue delaying pieces of it, including revenue raisers, because any resulting cost increases might be hidden.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/-233551-1.html?zkPrintable=true
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PL shows everything that’s wrong with the “living Constitution” theory.
“SCOTUS is expected to weigh public opinion in making its next decision. Polling like the above suggests rapid evolution in public attitudes on the core Constitutional questions here, which could make a broader ruling more likely.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2014/06/06/morning-plum-a-gay-rights-milestone/
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jnc:
PL shows everything that’s wrong with the “living Constitution” theory.
Yup. But in reality the theory is just a thin cover for what proponents really want, which is to impose their own minority view on an unwilling public. If living constitutionalists cared a whit about what the public thought, then they wouldn’t be trying to subvert the results of the one “polling” process that means something under the constitution…voting.
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From Forbes, Ten Economic Truths Liberals Need to Learn.
I’ve got some quibbles, but overall it’s a good point. We’ve discussed several of them here in the past, including number 5:
5) Education is not a public good. We provide publicly funded K-12 education to all (even to non-citizens), but the education provided produces human capital that is privately owned by each person. This human capital means more work skills, more developed talent, and more potential productivity. People with more human capital generally get paid more, collecting the returns from their education in the form of higher earnings. One common defense of education as a public good is worth refuting here. Yes, education helps people invent things that benefit society. However, they will expect to be paid for those inventions, not give them away for free in return for their education.
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I don’t know if it is true, but it is depressing to know that with this president it seems perfectly plausible.
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There is nothing, absolutely nothing, non-partisan about the Elmendorf CBO. It is obama’s fiscal propaganda arm.
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I’ve been a little out of commission the last three weeks or so and found these Pro Publica links to what they considered the best reporting on the VA story very useful. I haven’t worked my way through all of them yet but plan to this weekend.
Just thought some of you might get some use out of them.
http://www.propublica.org/article/the-veterans-affairs-scandal-and-more-muckreads-on-va-health-care?utm_campaign=sprout&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter&utm_content=1401907598
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Haters.
http://thefederalist.com/2014/06/06/the-8-stupidest-arguments-being-made-about-obamas-bergdahl-swap/
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Oh WOW, I had no idea there was such a staggering number of same sex couples in these cities.
http://www.policymic.com/articles/90413/the-most-lgbt-friendly-city-in-america-has-been-declared?utm_source=policymicFB&utm_medium=main&utm_campaign=social
And no, I didn’t bother to look into how they determined these numbers………………it’s Friday and the first day in about 10 that I’ve felt like part of the human race.:)
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“Yup. But in reality the theory is just a thin cover for what proponents really want”
That’s why we need a Republican president and Senate. Everyone does it.
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PL shows everything that’s wrong with the “living Constitution” theory.
The quotation is a wonderful example of the corruption and intellectual bankruptcy of progressive “thought.” When public opinion was reliably and broadly that homosexual behavior is depraved and immoral, of course, progs argued that public opinion was the very reason why courts should impose the contrary view by law. Now that the propaganda and extortion campaign has at least momentarily tipped opinion their way, they say the courts should make that 50% (yeah, not even a majority) opinion law.
You find the same self-contradictory arguments in the abortion debate going back to Roe and Griswold. When the progs want to impose their will as law, they argue, if they can, that there is a societal consensus in their favor. Of course, if that were the case, then it would not be necessary for the courts to enforce it. If public opinion is against them, they argue the opposite, that the “minority” must be protected against society’s consensus. None of their arguments have a single thing to do with the Constitution.
The country is lost now for the foreseeable future and will continue to decline and decay and fail. At least half the public has been conditioned to accept that up is down, black is white, good is evil, and evil is good. A good third is fully totalitarian in its mentality, driven by depravity and hatred for the portion that hasn’t given over to their depravity. Just read PL; they are their every day. Or just read the comments to news stories like the Colorado baker case. Conflict is coming.
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I don’t know if it is true, but it is depressing to know that with this president it seems perfectly plausible
It seems impossible not to see this as among the most innocent explanations for Obama’s bizarre actions regarding Bergdahl. It is almost as if Obama set out to give credence to the most extreme conspiracy theories about himself. He is our first anti-American President. Perhaps the last and only one needed. His hubris and detachment from reality are mindboggling; or perhaps he knew perfectly well how it would come out but no longer thinks he has to concern himself with public opinion.
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It’s true that a good share of liberal voters will remain in abject poverty through lack of ambition and lies told to them by their leaders about what the world owes them; and they may well take to the streets as the government gravy train eventually grinds to a halt. But, fortunately, even Obama, the Clintons, Schumer and the rest of the agenda setting Democrats know where their bread is buttered. The streets will be cleaned.
Dem pols will sing to the less intelligent members of the choir for votes, but America will be a capitalist society for many years to come, and people will either (a) adapt to conservative economic principles, making themselves useful, productive and successful members of society, (b) work for the government as long as the government can afford to pay them, or (c) be among the dregs of society, dependent on government support for survival, and blaming their condition on someone else. There are always winners and losers, and the current Democratic agenda is to create as many losers as possible, because most of the losers readily buy into the idea of someone else supporting them.
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He is our first anti-American President
Oh, please. Get help. Really.
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‘Goose, it was my impression that we pretty much had disposed of the idea that BHO had done anything particularly unusual in the Bergdahl deal a few days ago. Did something change?
We brought back the last POW from ‘Nam, investigated him, and CM’d and DD’d him, so there is no reason to suddenly shift our policy of “no one left behind” b/c Bergdahl is probably subject to prosecution for something. And we agree that trading prisoners is within the constitutional war power of a POTUS, so what’s new here? QB?
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Mark:
it was my impression that we pretty much had disposed of the idea that BHO had done anything particularly unusual in the Bergdahl deal a few days ago.
We (you and I, at least) agreed that Obama was acting within his executive powers, but that was about it. Trading 5 of the highest level prisoners, enemy leaders, for 1 low level private suspected of desertion strikes me as at least a little “unusual”. I am not aware of any similar exchange by any other US leader in the past. If the Daily Mail is correct, he didn’t do it out of any “leave no man behind” principle but rather in a cynical attempt to keep a campaign promise that he has otherwise found it difficult to keep. Given the questionable circumstances surrounding Bergdahl’s disappearance, even if one did think it a duty to bring him back, celebrating the swap by bringing his parents to the WH for a big photo op, and sending minions out to talk up up Bergdahl as serving with “distinction and honor” seems to show a significant lack of judgment, and a either a lack of awareness or a lack of concern regarding military notions of honor. And this is not to even get into Obama’s shameless hypocrisy in “end running” congress with a signing statement, and his subsequent dishonesty about it.
The fact that Obama may have had the constitutional power to do what he did does’t mean there is nothing unusual or condemnable about it, Mark.
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Good article from Kevin Williamson today.
My own view is that those in the pro-life camp who wish to carve out legal exceptions for cases of rape are undermining their own position. If our desire is to protect the lives of the innocent unborn, then the circumstances of their conception, no matter how horrible, cannot be allowed to overrule their standing as members of the human family. But that is not to say that the circumstances do not matter. We should be fully cognizant of exactly what our position implies, and of the extraordinary burden such a standard would impose on women who have suffered a particularly heinous kind of assault.
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Go Kings!
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Go Kings!
Unhappy with the result, but man, what a game..
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The country is lost now for the foreseeable future and will continue to decline and decay and fail.
We survived FDR and LBJ. We’ll survive obama too.
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Brent:
We survived FDR and LBJ. We’ll survive obama too.
Trouble is each one takes us further into the abyss, making it more difficult to survive each time. Eventually we won’t.
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Unhappy with the result, but man, what a game..
Unbelievable! Bet those guys are beat today! We had a movie to watch and it kept getting later and later but we couldn’t turn the game off. Needless to say I didn’t make it but about half way through the movie. 😉
Edit………….My Angels had a big win last night as well! Hooray
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Scott
even if one did think it a duty to bring him back, celebrating the swap by bringing his parents to the WH for a big photo op
Can’t really disagree with you there, considering the circumstances of his “disappearance” I thought it was in poor taste really. But let’s not dwell on photo ops too much………………….can’t forget Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” one. I really think these guys (President’s) live in a bubble and are run around by the nose by minions who are power hungry and image obsessed. Maybe two terms in office is just too long for any of them………………. 🙂 Did anyone else think his parents were sort of weird?
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Name a country that has thrived w/our debt to GDP ratio?
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Scott
My own view is that those in the pro-life camp who wish to carve out legal exceptions for cases of rape are undermining their own position.
I think this is true for people who believe “personhood” begins at conception and are truly anti-abortion. I suppose the only exception for them should really be if the mother’s life is in danger right?
The story itself was sort of sweet and sappy but I’m sure there are plenty of women who do the same thing. For me though, the choice should still be the woman’s, whether raped or not. Up to a point of course (viability for me), which we’ve already discussed.
I myself carried a child to term (against the begging of my husband to terminate the pregnancy), my son, and it cost me my first marriage and a lot of difficulty as a single mom, but again, it was my choice. Besides, my first husband was an asshole anyway so it wasn’t any great loss on that front…………….hahahaha
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Name a country that has thrived w/our debt to GDP ratio?
Us. It was higher after WWII. Though I think this time around, we will handle our debt to GDP ratio through inflation, not increased taxes.
At the end of the day, people are still dumb enough to lend money to the US government for 10 years at 2.6%. And that is largely because our trading partners like China would rather exchange a container ship full of rubber duckies for financial assets instead of Boeing aircraft.
The problem I have with issues like interest rates and currency rates is that the biggest actors in these spaces – central banks, sovereign wealth accounts, etc are non-economic players. The Fed isn’t buying Treasuries because it thinks they are a good bet – they are buying them for political reasons. The Bank of China is buying Treasuries because they want to export their way out of their slowdown and they want to have as many manufacturing jobs as possible for people as the they flood the cities as they abandon the agrarian life. That complicates the standard market analysis for what interest rates and currencies do.
At the end of the day, the US sets interest rates exactly the way the Politboro did – with a bunch of academics sitting in a room determining what they should be.
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In all fairness, anyone who has been in the military knows that “missions” are a part of a battle, which is a part of a war. You can accomplish a mission – get Saddam – without declaring victory in the entire war.
Of course most people in the left-wing media, who hated Bush, never served a day in the military and wouldn’t know this.
Or they simply wanted an excuse to trash Bush, and they created one.
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Brent, that’s fine but I was really only comparing the photo op capitalization that both President’s enjoyed. I understand war strategy and propaganda pretty well, my husband is a Vietnam Vet and my dad was a Bombardier over Germany. His “mission” was accomplished in 35 bombing raids into Germany with very little fanfare.
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even if one did think it a duty to bring him back, celebrating the swap by bringing his parents to the WH for a big photo op
Can’t really disagree with you there, considering the circumstances of his “disappearance” I thought it was in poor taste really.
Completely agree and did not know about this “event”.
Poor taste combined with a failure of political judgment.
As for the Gitmo 5, I am not exercised about this. Israel regularly turns over multiple killers for one IDF POW. Seems like we should not be afraid of these stone age jerks 10000 mi away, if Israel rates the risk of turning them over to a neighboring foe as acceptable.
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Mark:
As for the Gitmo 5, I am not exercised about this. Israel regularly turns over multiple killers for one IDF POW.
It is not just the number that matters. There is context that distinguishes this from what Israel does. Even beyond that, Israel regularly does a lot of things I’m guessing you object to, so the “Israel does it” defense isn’t persuasive to me.
Seems like we should not be afraid of these stone age jerks 10000 mi away, if Israel rates the risk of turning them over to a neighboring foe as acceptable.
Again, this kind of argument might be persuasive if you endorsed the Israeli approach to its enemies in its entirety.
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Brent, thanks for that though I’ll quibble that post WWII the rest of the world’s infrastructure and populations were destroyed leaving us as the sole provisos or goods for decades. I just think the disruption that will come is likely to fundamentally change the current order.
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Yes, there is the lack of competition, but there was also another big factor – cheap energy. That ended with the Arab Oil Embargo in 1972.
Of course we could have the same set of circumstances in the future, but our economic simpleton of a president is pulling out all the stops to prevent that in order to get funds from the Hollywood – enviro movement, who is doing to vote (and contribute) to the D party regardless of what he does.
I think we inflate our way out of it. The young will be just fine, because wages keep up with inflation. The baby boom who has their net worth tied up in Treasuries? Fucked.
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The baby boom who has their net worth tied up in Treasuries? Fucked.
Makes a rental real estate portfolio look even better.
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Obama didn’t just trade five of the worst terrorists for Bergdahl but had his parents in the Rose Garden, knowing — surely Obama knew? — he was at best a deserter. Knowing the bizarre behavior and statements of Bergdahl’s father. Susan Rice told the country Bergdahl served honorably and with distinction. Was she again out of the loop? I don’t think so.
Michi can run for her fainting couch all she wants. When Obama talks about how he now believes in American exceptionalism with all his heart and then goes on reflexively to bash America to explain his belief, we know what we are hearing.
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We survived FDR and LBJ. We’ll survive obama too.
Surival is complicated notion in this context. Maybe we will, maybe we won’t.
But just because we survived them without immediately collapsing doesn’t tell us much about our future survival now. Things are very, very different now than post-FDR or even LBJ. The country and the government was not in the grip of the set of post-modern pathologies that now govern us. Half the country thinks the Equal Protection Clause suddenly requires recognition of “gay marriage.” A third is positively bugeyed with hatred for anyone who disagrees, imagining that hatred is the only reason to disagree. Our debt is unsustainable. One major party thinks we still don’t tax and spend enough. If the country had a collective mind, we’d have to be declared incompetent. It’s gone insane.
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From Forbes, Ten Economic Truths Liberals Need to Learn.
There’s Forbes and then there’s Forbes. They picked up True/Slant awhile ago, along with a suitable amount of nuttiness. The Forbes contributor network is basically a bunch of bloggers with a Forbes bumper sticker. The most entertaining of his trite truisms has to be Education is not a public good.
He then spins this with some sophistry about what a student learns is not a public good. Evidently, he’s sufficiently confused that he conflates education with knowledge. Sadly, he missed a bit of insight or perspective along the way.
BB
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FB:
He then spins this with some sophistry about what a student learns is not a public good.
No, he didn’t. He made the pretty much unassailable point that the benefits of the education provided end up owned by the individual, not by the public.
Evidently, he’s sufficiently confused that he conflates education with knowledge.
I’d be interested in your understanding of the difference and how it is relevant to the claim that education is an individual, not a public, good.
Also clarify if you are one of those people who understands a public good to be literally anything that might provide an ancillary benefit to a wider group outside of those directly involved in consuming/providing the thing.
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The baby boom who has their net worth tied up in Treasuries? Fucked.
If one has one's entire retirement fund tied up in fixed rate securities, you deserve it.
BB
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FB:
If one has one’s entire retirement fund tied up in fixed rate securities, you deserve it.
Spoken like a true one percenter! If one’s primary retirement “fund” is SS there isn’t any choice.
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Wait till Teh Krugman see’s this! I weep for the strawmen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10884632/Do-I-have-to-go-on-my-knees-grovelling-apology-from-IMF-head-for-incorrect-warnings-on-UK-economy.html
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He then spins this with some sophistry about what a student learns is not a public good. Evidently, he’s sufficiently confused that he conflates education with knowledge. Sadly, he missed a bit of insight or perspective along the way.
What irony. Knowledge in general can easily be viewed as a public good, the sort of knowledge that is freely discoverable by anyone, that is. Education, that is, teaching by people who have knowledge, clearly isn’t. It is just another service that some people can provide and others want, a classic private good. Someone indeed seems not to understand the difference.
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FB:
Someone indeed seems not to understand the difference.
My thought exactly. FB is basically helping to make the author’s overall point.
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My thought exactly. FB is basically helping to make the author’s overall point.
It’s a typically obtuse argument by FB. The author responded to the typical liberal argument that knowledge attained from education provides public benefits (which in their clouded minds somehow makes education the government’s job), so FB accuses him of sophistry. So lame.
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Fly your Gadsen flags with pride. News report from the Las Vegas WalMart shooting:
http://www.reviewjournal.com/news/las-vegas/shooters-metro-ambush-left-five-dead-spoke-white-supremacy-and-desire-kill-police
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Charity carwashes are illegal in Arlington, VA.
The Nanny State will be coming after lemonade stands next:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/arlington-cracks-down-on-carwash-fundraisers/2014/06/08/987f08b2-e832-11e3-8f90-73e071f3d637_story.html?wpmk=MK0000203
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yello:
The Nanny State will be coming after lemonade stands next:
It already has been.
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Fly your Gadsen flags with pride.
I give it four hours before the Obamedia calls it a Tea Party massacre. Or have they already? Oh, what difference does it make.
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I take full responsibility and renounce everything I’ve ever believed.
Thank you yello. I love you.
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I blame anti-Walmart rhetoric.
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I take full responsibility and renounce everything I’ve ever believed.
That was easy. I was really hoping for a vigorous No True Scotsman defense.
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yello:
I was really hoping for a vigorous No True Scotsman defense.
What, you really thought someone here would say that no true white supremecist would shoot some cops? Weird.
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Because homicide rates are down – way down, really – I wonder if these splashy headlines of bizarre murders are a disservice. Not that they aren’t newsworthy – it’s just that pre-internet, pre-24 hr. cable, there was a distinction between local news [much of it about grisly homicides, apartment fires, and multiple car wrecks] and the “national news”. Everyone is Martin’s or Zimmerman’s neighbor now. Everyone was in that cafe watching the cop get shot now. Yet we seem to know and care much less about what goes on in our own neighborhood, city, county, school district, or state than ever before, if local vote turnout is a measure.
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Since I beleive in drug decriminalization, open borders/instant citizenship and reducing the DoD budget by at least a third, of course I’m a white supremacist who gets a hard-on shooting cops in CiCi’s pizza’s
Duh.
AmIRight
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“can’t forget Bush’s “Mission Accomplished” one.”
That’s a good analogy, and it was perfectly fair to call the Bush administration on it once it was clear that the occupation wasn’t going as planned.
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Yes, Mark, I think the global mass-media/internet information revolution has had some dramatic and negative effects as you describe. It is well documented that many mass/multiple killings have copycat elements and motivations to attain media noteriety and attention. We have a big heroin problem in my suburban community, but that receives 1/10 the notice of a story like this one from far away.
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I’d say a new line was crossed when the VA Tech shooter prepared a media package and mailed it to NBC during his rampage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Tech_massacre
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/18195423/
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I didn’t know that about Cho. He even referred to Harris and Klebold as martyrs. Harris in turn had written that previous school shooters were pikers compared to the fame he would gain.
I suppose at some level it has always been the case that some criminals watch their press clipping and bask in the attention, and in some cases cite bizarre motives to precipitate wider events. But the modern media environment certainly has amplified the pattern at a minimum.
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QB, certainly that was the case with the most notorious gangsters of the 1920’s & 1930’s like Dillinger, Floyd, etc.
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