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 | 1939.1 | -4.1 | -0.21% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3250.8 | -34.0 | -1.04% |
| Oil (WTI) | 106.1 | 0.0 | 0.05% |
| LIBOR | 0.234 | 0.000 | 0.11% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.16 | -0.170 | -0.21% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.54% | -0.04% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 106.6 | 0.1 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 105.9 | 0.1 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.19 |
Markets are lower this morning after a dismal revision to first quarter GDP. Bonds and MBS are flying on the number
First quarter GDP fell at a downward revised rate of 2.9% in the first quarter. The initial estimate was a .1% increase, which was revised downward to -1%, which was finally revised down to 2.9%. There were some obamacare-related revisions in personal consumption expenditures which drove the decrease in the number.
Personal consumption rose 1% in Q1, versus an expected increase of 2.4%.Finally, durable goods orders fell 1% although if you strip out defense, air and transportation the number isn’t that bad.
Was first quarter GDP as bad as all that? I think you have to take the number with a huge grain of salt. Weather did have an effect, but it looks like there was some obamacare bean-counting issues happening that made the number so low. Simply put, the last time we had a similar GDP report was 2008 / 2009 and no one is going to argue that Q1 was as bad as then. The rest of the data is reasonably strong. Chalk this one up to technical revisions. The bond market is taking that view as well.
Case in point: The Markit PMI and Services PMI numbers came in above 61, which is a good number. If the ISM reported a PMI number above 61, we would be talking a manufacturing pace that would correspond to 4% GDP growth. Of course manufacturing doesn’t have the impact on the economy it used to, but still…
Insurers are beginning to tally up the effects of Obamacare and what it will mean for premiums next year. People enrolled in the new plans under Obamacare are showing higher rates of serious health conditions than other insurance customers, who tend to hang on to their old plans. This means prices are going way up next year for these new plans. So, either premiums are going to have to rise a lot, or government subsidies will have to rise a lot. Remember, the only reason why the insurance companies went along with Obamacare in the first place is because the government is going to backstop any losses they take. If Obama demands that they hold down prices to keep voters happy, then government will have to pick up the tab. Maybe Elmendorf’s CBO can figure out a way to obfuscate the issue so the Administration can claim it is bending the cost curve down, or at least claim we cannot say Obamacare is increasing costs.
The upshot: Higher healthcare costs = less disposable income. Which means less spending and a weaker economy. If there is a multiplier on health care spend, it cannot be that big.
Mortgage Applications fell 1% last week as well. Both purchases and refis fell.
Foreclosure starts fell to 78.8k in April, according to Black Knight Financial Services. We are starting to see more progress in the judicial states, however Massachusetts instituted a new foreclosure prevention (home price appreciation prevention) program, which is keeping its pipeline high.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
People enrolled in the new plans under Obamacare are showing higher rates of serious health conditions than other insurance customers, who tend to hang on to their old plans. This means prices are going way up next year for these new plans. So, either premiums are going to have to rise a lot, or government subsidies will have to rise a lot. Remember, the only reason why the insurance companies went along with Obamacare in the first place is because the government is going to backstop any losses they take.
If the government is going to backstop the losses, why are the insurers the middleman in the first place (other than for expertise in administration). This set up sure starts to look like single-payer of some flavor.
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YJ, expertise in administration rather than reinventing the wheel is why so many countries have regulated but private insurance: Switzerland, Germany, Japan, France – all had completely private systems that became government regulated private systems because the prospect of nationalizing insurance was overwhelming.
And regulated private care and regulated private insurance work better than GB’s NHS, apparently.
Canada is a special case, I think, because it started with provincial insurance and private MDs and moved to national insurance and private MDs.
I just don’t think we can ever be Canada. The expansion of Medicaid itself is probably a fiscal cliff we will crash over. We could be Switzerland, albeit we would have to tax like Switzerland and have some other country provide our defense.
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If the government is going to backstop the losses, why are the insurers the middleman in the first place (other than for expertise in administration).
I see my predictions are playing out already.
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[Forcing people to by insurance] makes [a government takeover] much easier. Already it is being used as the justification for making the insurance industry more and more regulated, with the government increasingly dictating who and what insurance companies must cover. That regulation will simply increase over time, until the insurance industry is effectively rendered to be little more than a middle-man, skimming a profit for the privilege of being an agent of the government, at which point the argument will be made that it would be much more efficient to eliminate the middleman, who is no longer adding any value to the process, and is, in effect, simply collecting corporate welfare via government guarantees. ACA puts us well on the road already with the command that “insurance” must be provided to those with pre-existing conditions at community rates, which effectively eliminates the primary purpose and value of an insurance company, namely, the proper evaluation and pricing of individual risk relative to population risk.
– Scott C., responding to bsimon at 8:40 am on April 2, 2012 (emphasis added)
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Right. The government has shown nothing but competency when it comes to administering things.
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“Maybe Elmendorf’s CBO can figure out a way to obfuscate the issue so the Administration can claim it is bending the cost curve down, or at least claim we cannot say Obamacare is increasing costs.”
I believe that they have started pushing the line that they can’t score it anymore going forward.
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Serious question, why can’t we unregulated both insurance and providers?
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My serious answer is that they act like monopoly sellers. The biggest offenders are the so called non-profit hospitals and the protected pharm industry. Actually, the biggest offender is the widespread American lust for sugar, drugs, and alcohol, but I digress.
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So, reduce the barriers to entry and deregulate. Also, and it’s just a thought here, let Americans suffer the consequences of their actions. When you aren’t forced at gunpoint to pay for their care, you won’t care how they live their lives.
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Jesus, that gotta be the lowest GDP since what, Carter?
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Reducing the barriers to entry itself will require anti-trust action, George.
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My favorite.
https://twitter.com/DrewMTips/status/481782129714409472
It’s QE all the way down.
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Great! Deregulate and remove certification and licensing requirements.
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What could possibly explain GDP contraction? It would have had to have started Jan 1.
Hmmmmmm.
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We may NEVER crack this mystery. Wrapped in a riddle. Surrounded by enigma.
https://twitter.com/DrewMTips/status/481784597164724224
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I see my predictions are playing out already.
Wasn’t the whole point of this goat rodeo to fuck up the private insurance market enough that the government has to fix it, while at the same time not fucking it up so much that people fear the government will fuck it up more?
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Brent:
Wasn’t the whole point of this goat rodeo to fuck up the private insurance market enough that the government has to fix it, while at the same time not fucking it up so much that people fear the government will fuck it up more?
I think so, although I’ve been accused of conspiracy theories and playing 11th dimensional chess when I’ve pointed it out in the past. As I said a long time ago to bsimon, this is the only way single payer can be achieved in a nation wary of an explicit government takeover of a private industry.
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The left has lusted after controlling the health care sector since FDR… It isn’t 11-dimensional chess, it is just stating the obvious…
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” goat rodeo to fuck”
Brent, you used a phrase about basically meant the same thing. but it involved a pear. do you recall. i’d like t steal it.
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I don’t understand that kind of lust for power. It’s plain creepy.
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McWing:
I don’t understand that kind of lust for power. It’s plain creepy.
It’s for your own good. Don’t ask questions.
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Unpossible!
https://twitter.com/seanmdav/status/481788924965044226
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also, any thoughts on what the GDP revision will do to mortgage rates?
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Nova, I think I said something went pear-shaped. It is a phrase I picked up in the UK…
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that’s it. hilarious. they have the best idioms.
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The bond market is rallying on the GDP report, but I think the markets are largely giving the government a mulligan on the report.
Edit: The bond market has been looking for any excuse to rally lately… It is entirely possible that something is going on, someone is in trouble, and we’ll find out about it later. In some ways, it reminds me of 2007, when bonds were rallying hard in the face of increasing oil prices. People were scratching their heads wondering why, and the answer was that the financial system was beginning the mother of all risk-off trades.
Not saying anything is necessarily going on, but I keep in the back of my mind the idea that the bond market is telling us something…
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see comment #14
http://minx.cc:1080/?blog=86&post=350056
also #11
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And regulated private care and regulated private insurance work better than GB’s NHS, apparently.
I have no real beef with private insurance administering benefits. My touchstones are that health care coverage should be 1)portable, 2)permanent, and 3)universal. There are a lot of ways to skin that can. Single payer is one. Unlimited open enrollment is another. But the current for-profit paradigm has too many counter-incentives.
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yello:
I have no real beef with private insurance administering benefits.
The relevant question is whether you have a beef with private insurance doing what it was created to do. Insurance companies don’t exist to “administer benefits”, they exist to evaluate and price individual risk relative to a population. I strongly suspect that you do have a beef with that. I’m guessing that you want coverage, and more specifically the cost of it, to be pretty much unrelated to individual risk factors. But insurance in which the cost is unrelated to individual risk factors is not really insurance.
My touchstones are that health care coverage should be 1)portable, 2)permanent, and 3)universal.
I'm guessing you have left one touchstone out: "affordable". Insurance as it existed prior to ACA could easily have been "universal", just not at prices that you would deem acceptable, especially for people with pre-existing conditions (who, BTW, need financial assistance, not insurance).
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But insurance in which the cost is unrelated to individual risk factors is not really insurance.
Carried to the extreme, if all risk factors are examined, it’s not even insurance. The ‘rates’ for a child born with a congenital heart defect would indeed be astronomical, amounting to pre-payment of a lifetime of care. There is no incentive for a for-profit company to ever accept that risk. That is why when I’m trying to be precise I use the phrase “health care coverage” rather than ‘medical insurance’ which is often narrowly assumed to be needed only for catastrophic care.
people with pre-existing conditions (who, BTW, need financial assistance, not insurance).
Only under the pre-ACA regulations, they often got neither. Even minor pre-existing conditions made people ineligible for even the most basic coverage at anything approaching an affordable price, if it was offered at all.
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yello:
Carried to the extreme, if all risk factors are examined, it’s not even insurance. The ‘rates’ for a child born with a congenital heart defect would indeed be astronomical, amounting to pre-payment of a lifetime of care.
Exactly why I said people with such pre-existing conditions do not need insurance. They need financial assistance.
That is why when I’m trying to be precise I use the phrase “health care coverage”…
If by "coverage" you mean insurance coverage, then you are not being precise in any event. Because you are not advocating for insurance coverage, you are advocating for some kind of wealth transfer. Insurance is a product in which one buys protection against some possible but uncertain event in the future, paying for it a price determined by the risk that the event will happen to the individual doing the buying. That is not what you want. You want "coverage" of an event that is likely, if not certain, to happen for a price that is unrelated to the risk.
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Why is healthcare a right?
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Oh fuck, that question was 19th century. Shoulda had a trigger warning.
Sorry yello!
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Why is healthcare a right?
Because it’s the right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Liberty is a negative right and life is a positive right. But I forget that libertarians don’t believe in those.
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yello:
life is a positive right.
No, it isn’t. No one has the obligation to keep you alive. They just have the obligation not to actively kill you.
eidt:
corked by nova
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life is a negative liberty. in the sense that the gov can’t take it from you without due process.
doesn’t mean it has to provide you with one or keep it .uh, active?
edit — it also is negative in that you’re supposed to be able to live your life free from undue government influence/coercion.
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What doesn’t that phrase cover?
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life is a negative liberty.
That’s your assertion. But treating life as only a negative right, violates the First Law of Robotics:
Life as a negative right only holds muster if one believes an individual has no obligation to other people in any respect.
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yello:
Life as a negative right only holds muster if one believes an individual has no obligation to other people in any respect.
Incorrect. The right to life is a negative right if it is the case that everyone has the obligation not to deal with others through force or fraud.
The notion of positive rights is incoherent alongside the notion that all such rights inhere in men equally.
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The first law of robotics is in itself a fine example of the incoherency of positive rights. The first part–may not injure–establishes a prohibition on doing harm. The second clause, however, establishes an affirmative duty to act (which is the corollary of a positive right of humans to assistance) that cannot be fulfilled except in very limited and conditional terms. It would require all robots at all times to act to protect every human from being harmed. An ethical principle of aiding others makes sense. A universal right to everyone’s aid and support does not. Not even between two classes of “persons.”
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No one has the obligation to keep you alive.
Corked. Our first principles are irreconcilably at odds.
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yello:
Our first principles are irreconcilably at odds.
Yes they are. Worse, your first principles are undoubtedly irreconcilable with each other.
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They need financial assistance.
And by what means would you have that financial assistance provided?
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yello:
And by what means would you have that financial assistance provided?
It is neither my obligation nor my right to “have that financial assistance provided”. If you wanted to provide that person with assistance, I wouldn’t stop you. I may even help you, depending upon who it is.
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But I forget that libertarians don’t believe in those.
The notion of positive rights is incoherent alongside the notion that all such rights inhere in men equally.
If you don’t believe in positive rights, there is no value in discussing the ramifcations of them.
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yello:
If you don’t believe in positive rights, there is no value in discussing the ramifcations of them.
Sure there is, at least with someone interested in reason and non-contradictory thought. People routinely discuss the ramifications of hypotheticals in which they don’t actually believe. (eg: If X were true, then Y and Z would also be true. Is Y and Z true, and if not, what does that mean for X?) However, with someone who believes a thing can be both A and not A at the same time and in the same respect, then you are correct, there would be no value in discussing the contradictions inherent in the notion of positive rights.
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Worse, your first principles are undoubtedly irreconcilable with each other.
Godel proved that no logical system can be free of contradiction.
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Yello:
Godel proved that no logical system can be free of contradiction.
The above sounded like nonsense to me, but I am no mathematics expert, so I had to refresh myself on Godel, and it seems the above is totally incorrect. Godel’s two incompleteness theorum hold that 1) in any axiomatic system there exists true statements that cannot be proven within the system itself and 2) the consistency of such a system cannot be demonstrated by the system. From Wikipedia:
The first incompleteness theorem states that no consistent system of axioms whose theorems can be listed by an “effective procedure” (e.g., a computer program, but it could be any sort of algorithm) is capable of proving all truths about the relations of the natural numbers (arithmetic). For any such system, there will always be statements about the natural numbers that are true, but that are unprovable within the system. The second incompleteness theorem, an extension of the first, shows that such a system cannot demonstrate its own consistency.
Unprovable does not mean contradictory. Hence the term “incompleteness theorem” and not “theorem of contradiction”.
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I updated the quotation to present a distant memory of mine from law school.
To recap, like QB I think the federal courts under the auspices of the 14th A. have no business setting aside state law that does not recognize SSM. While I would vote to recognize SSM in a state legislature, I remain amazed at the judicial legislation in this area. The quote I posted, from Holmes, simply expresses my view.
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Mark:
I remain amazed at the judicial legislation in this area.
While I agree with you that the judicial branch has no role in deciding this, is such judicial action really all that different from the trend that has been established for quite some time? The Supremes have spent many years bending, stretching, and ignoring the constitution in order to achieve politically favorable results. Why should it be shocking that it does so on this issue, too?
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Won’t positive rights clash in a limited resources world?
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Won’t positive rights clash in a limited resources world?
All rights clash in all worlds. That’s why we have laws and courts.
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If you wanted to provide that person with assistance, I wouldn’t stop you.
Private charity has historically proven inadequate. But I’m sure that doesn’t bother you.
I may even help you, depending upon who it is.
So it’s survival of the most worthy.
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yello:
Private charity has historically proven inadequate.
So has everything else. Necessarily. In a world of finite resources, which is the world we live in, choices must be made, and there are opportunity costs to all of those choices. I prefer that people be allowed to make their own choices, in pursuit of their own values, rather than forcing my choices upon them. (There’s a lesson to be had in there about the incoherence of positive rights, if you are open to the lesson. How can my pursuit of happiness be reconciled with your right to life if your right to life obligates me to pursue something other than my happiness? Like I said, incoherence.)
So it’s survival of the most worthy.
No. Your mistake is thinking that there could possibly be an objective measure of “worthy”. There isn’t. Someone who is worthy of, or perhaps even owed, my assistance is not necessarily worthy of (or owed) your assistance. We all value different people differently, and make different assessments about how much of our help any other individual is “worthy” of or owed. The only difference is that some of us acknowledge it, while others pretend to value all other in the world equally.
All rights clash in all worlds.
No they don’t. Negative rights do not clash, which is precisely why it is a better conception of rights than positive rights, which must of necessity conflict, thus destroying the very concept of a “right”.
That’s why we have laws and courts.
No it isn’t.
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If X were true, then Y and Z would also be true. Is Y and Z true, and if not, what does that mean for X?
Damn. Now, we’re in the math part of the discussion already.
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yello:
Damn. Now, we’re in the math part of the discussion already.
You were the one who (incorrectly, I believe) introduced Godel.
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what about robots again?
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what about robots again?
Isaac Asimov made a good living writing stories about the inherent contradictions of a belief system that had just three rules.
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Yep, it’s a pure flip flop of both sides
“Wingnuts and liberals’ bizarre role reversal: Why Export-Import Bank politics are so perverse
Nowadays, Democrats are defending Ex-Im, and the right is calling it “corporate welfare.” It wasn’t always that way
David Dayen
Wednesday, Jun 25, 2014 02:00 PM EST”
http://www.salon.com/2014/06/25/wingnuts_and_liberals_bizarre_role_reversal_why_export_import_bank_politics_are_so_perverse/
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@yellojkt: “And by what means would you have that financial assistance provided?”
Well, charity, for one. The marketplace, for another (there’s a way to make money off of everyone). Group effort, for a third. Specialized insurance meant to spread costs around a specific group of like-affected folks for another. Pre-purchased low-cost catastrophic insurance for a fourth. That is, I or my employer purchase catastrophic insurance ahead of birth or even conception for children that provides a reasonably large risk pool.
Not perfect. But the only real active guarantee of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness no matter what (there was nothing to be done for congenital heart defects, at any price, when those words were written) involves technological innovation, which is hurt by economic stagnation rather than helped.
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/tom-acitelli-rising-hops-prices-make-craft-brewers-jumpy-1403737009
shit just got real.
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My son just took a job with Terrapin Beer which is a very ‘hop-forward’ craft brewer. This could hit them pretty hard.
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key point from JNC’s Ex-Im link: “I wanted to give all that back story to inform today’s debate. While libertarian groups like the Cato Institute have been consistent on opposing Ex-Im for picking corporate winners and losers, most of the rest of D.C. has shifted.”
for everyone else, it’s principals > principles.
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That’s in Georgia, right?
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Athens Georgia. A tough place to be for a Yellow Jacket. Especially on game day.
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Ugh. or I suppose Uga
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What’s making hops prices rise?
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What’s making hops prices rise?
Supply and demand. The need for hops in craft beers has outpaced the growers who had actually cut back some when the market had gotten glutted a few years ago. They need to start trading hops on the CBOT to even out price spikes.
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Supply and demand? Meh.
We spend far too much of our national GDP on hops. Other countries like the UK spend far less and make better beers. It’s just not fair that some small breweries are being priced out of the hops market. What we need is a government led solution to this national problem. An Affordable Hops Act. If we force all drink manufacturers to purchase hops, and then tell the hops seller how and what kind of hops to sell, we can produce more, better quality beer for cheaper prices.
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demand. the craft brewers are using a lot more of the stuff.
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@quarterback: “It would require all robots at all times to act to protect every human from being harmed.”
Which demonstrates that the three laws are entirely absurd, from a programming perspective. These three laws would all be composed of numerous sub laws and definitions or they would be effectively meaningless to the robot. How do we define “harm”? How do we judge the cost of our action versus the cost of inaction? How do we choose to prevent harm with limited resources? Such rules could be written, but could not deliver on a promise of global harm-prevention.
Let us say a crowd of people are threatened: the robot would have to choose (and choose accurately) the number of people he is most likely to actively assist, and calculate the risk that he in fact can’t help three people at all but could potentially prevent harm to two people but can only guarantee harm prevention for one. He would have to pick them on a criteria of, say, proximity rather than youth or gender or class or projected longevity.
So it’s not the three laws of robotics. In fact, it would be the three trillion laws of robotics, vastly oversimplified for the rubes.
There should be no positive rights, at all. And there aren’t, not really. They are just a rhetorical device to create entitlements.
I am not opposed to universal healthcare in the abstract (it depends on the overall cost: the lower the real cost financially and to the economy and technological innovation, the more I am for it). If everybody could be cured of everything for .01% of tax revenue, I would support it 100%, and wouldn’t give two shits that it was administered by the government or was “an entitlement”.
Thus far, it seems the cost of universal healthcare is too high. Or our ability to product good outcomes is too low. We may have shifted burdens some, but I’ve seen no sign that the ACA is now or is going to be a broadly positive initiative. What’s being produced thanks to the profit motive, however . . .
I’ve said before and I still think it’s true: one of the best things we could do is to allow Big Pharma to renew patents indefinitely on lifestyle drugs by trading patents on healthcare drugs, or as a “cash purchase” by how much, objectively audited, they spend on R&D for new medical pharmaceuticals.
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Kevin:
There should be no positive rights, at all. And there aren’t, not really. They are just a rhetorical device to create entitlements.
Hear, hear.
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Kdub, re robot laws, yes, exactly. Plus each robot’s duty would run simultaneously to each human in the universe. Thomas Sowell made a point about this in a book many years ago, observing that it isn’t possible to be equally concerned about and responsible for everyone in the world. This is a key indicator of the divide between left and right. It is typical of the left to pretend to global concern and look with suspicion on prioritization of family and local concern. It is more of a conceit in practice but inherent to many if not all forms of leftism.
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@novahockey: “demand. the craft brewers are using a lot more of the stuff.”
Damn you, free market.
I think this is going to require government intervention. 😉
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I think this is going to require government intervention.
Universal Beer Allowance.Just replace mohair subsidies with craft beer price support.
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“yellojkt, on June 25, 2014 at 2:55 pm said:
Won’t positive rights clash in a limited resources world?
All rights clash in all worlds. That’s why we have laws and courts.”
This is truer than you know. By establishing health care as a right, it won’t be allocated by experts based on rational decision making but rather by lobbying and litigation. See the lawsuit to overturn the decision on the lung transplant.
If it’s a right, then you go to court to enforce it and a panel of experts can’t ration it.
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What will be better for us, sex robots or sheep that cook?
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McWing:
What will be better for us, sex robots or sheep that cook?
Well if we have sex robots, then we will have to allow robot marriage, no? Anti-robot bigotry cannot stand! Agree with me or I will leave ATiM!!!!
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Robot marriage: not even a joke. Hybrid group quadsexual, transtech marriage just around the corner. In fact, there are people who believe they are really robots.
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i’ll cook my own sex sheep.
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So, sheep that cook then?
Is anybody else turned on?
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Some interesting decisions out of the Supremes today. Color me surprised.
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have you all read Robopocalypse?
picked it up at an airport bookstore. it’s okay. thought it was a bit rushed in parts.
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@ScottC: I imagine the liberals on the court are intelligently thinking ahead to a future where the president is no longer a Democrat. An ability to declare the senate out of session and appoint whoever you want to whatever position could be used by Republicans as well as Democrats, should it become the standard.
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So it’s not the three laws of robotics. In fact, it would be the three trillion laws of robotics, vastly oversimplified for the rubes.
Much of Asimov’s short fiction on the Robots was about how the various laws could conflict. My favorite was about a robot that was telepathic (willing suspension of disbelief, here folks). The protagonist of the story was Susan Calvin, chief scientist of US Robotics & Mechanical Men.
The problem with this particular robot being that it could see how being told hard truths causes distress amongst humans. So, it would tell them lies to make them feel good. Susan, approaching middle age and on her own, was misled by the robot to think that a fellow scientist fancied her. The actual revelation devastated her.
She eventually caused the robot to freeze when confronting it about how its lies harmed humans, violating the first law. The final word of the story comes from Susan: Liar!
BB
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BB – was it “KingOfZouk”?
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