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 | 1949.0 | -0.4 | -0.02% |
| Eurostoxx Index | 3253.1 | 0.7 | 0.02% |
| Oil (WTI) | 106.2 | -0.3 | -0.27% |
| LIBOR | 0.234 | 0.000 | 0.11% |
| US Dollar Index (DXY) | 80.23 | 0.007 | 0.01% |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.54% | -0.02% | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 106.5 | 0.0 | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 105.9 | 0.1 | |
| BankRate 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 4.16 |
Stocks are flat this morning after a disappointing personal spending report. Bonds and MBS are up
Personal Incomes rose .4% in May, in line with expectations, but spending came in at .2%, lower than the .4% estimate. Services spending dropped, while spending on durables increased. The PCE core rate (the Fed’s preferred measure of inflation) came in at 1.5%, lower than the Fed’s target rate
Initial Jobless Claims came in at 312k, more or less in line with expectations.
Note that the Markit PMI data came out yesterday and both the composite and the services numbers were at post-recession highs. Markit is forecasting a payrolls number next week of 250k, which is way above the ADP forecast of 208k and the Street forecast of 209k.
The war on the financial system continues. NY AG Eric Schneiderman just announced he is suing Barclay’s. Remember, the road to the NY Governor’s Mansion is paved with Wall Street lawsuits. Separately, Obama nominated the woman who railroaded Arthur Anderson into a guilty plea (only to have it overturned by the Supreme Court) to head the Criminal Division at DOJ. She has a fundamentally dim view of business in general and Wall Street in particular – considers us the wise guys of Wall Street, deserving brutal prosecutorial tactics. And the left wonders why credit is so tight…
Is the worldwide unprecedented easing by central banks causing a bubble in sovereign debt? Wilbur Ross and Steven Roach think so. Remember the PIIGS (Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Spain) problem children of the EU? Their 10 year bonds are yielding: Portugal: 2.84%, Greece 5.85%, Portugal, 3.5%, Spain 2.64%, Ireland, 2.34%. Irish 10 year sovereigns are trading at a lower yield than US treasuries. Two years ago, they were yielding 14%. Memories are short..
On the plus side, mortgage rates continue to fall, which is helping drive business. Chart: Bankrate 30 year fixed rate mortgage:
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Bill Frist is my senator. From the great state of Tennessee! Long may he reign.
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Presumably this means they forfeit their sovereign immunity as well:
“Massachusetts SWAT teams claim they’re private corporations, immune from open records laws
By Radley Balko June 26 at 10:27 AM”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-watch/wp/2014/06/26/massachusetts-swat-teams-claim-theyre-private-corporations-immune-from-open-records-laws/
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forfeit their sovereign immunity IF the court upholds their claim of exemption on those grounds AND an appellate court makes that “of record”, sure.
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That’s all kinds of messed up, JNC.
are they like Blackwater, or whatever that co. is called now?
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http://valleywag.gawker.com/celebrating-blade-the-uber-for-flying-to-montauk-1595996710/all
what’s really interesting is the writers comments below the story.
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Game is starting to pick up in intensity. Looked like GER and USA were playing to tie…
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mark:
Looked like GER and USA were playing to tie…
They should just pass the ball around the midfield to each other for 90 minutes.
This situation, where Germany and US can play to tie in order to get through, shows the stupidity of the World Cup format. Instead of having a group stage, with half the teams qualifying for the knockout stage, they should do a double elimination tournament, with a loser’s bracket and a winner’s bracket. Under the current format, each team is guaranteed to play in 3 games and there are a total of 48 matches. Under a double elimination format, each team would be guaranteed at least 2 games, and there would be a total of at least 46, and maybe 47 matches. There would be no draws, and so every team would actually have to try to win each game instead of playing for a draw, as both the US and Germany are incented to do right now.
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don’t get espn at the office, but i do get a spanish language channel that has it.
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GER goal
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Can we lose to GER and still get to the knockout round?
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yes. right now with POR up 2-1 we’re okay. it gets into a tie braker scenario, but we can lose and advance.
edit: see http://thebiglead.com/2014/06/22/usa-vs-germany-what-the-u-s-needs-to-advance-after-2-2-portugal-draw/#sthash.olHhtVHO.uxfs
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Thanx. One of my twin granddaughters started playing in 4-5 YO soccer as soon as she turned 4 in 1-2013. Thus she has played spring 2013, fall 2013, and spring 2014 on a team that has never lost a game. This spring she scored in every game [4 on 4, no goalie]. In the fall the team she was playing for is breaking up as it 2 best players and its coach are moving on to 6-7 YO soccer [with goalies]. I have never been so interested in soccer. USA just missed two last second chances. I have helped at practice now for three “seasons”.
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Can we PLEASE get trigger warnings before soccer comments?
#ThisIsStillTheUSofFuckingAYouKnow
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Can we PLEASE get trigger warnings before soccer comments?
lol
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it’s over. USA advances after losing.
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nova:
it’s over. USA advances after losing.
Only in the World Cup can you hear such a thing.
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I suppose it’s like some of those convoluted NFL clinching scenarios.
there troll. football talk for you.
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What has the country come to when you can’t even criticize Nickelback without getting harassed by The Man.
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HOLY SHIT!!!11!1!111!!!!!!
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSKBN0EZ0AI20140624?irpc=932
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whatever. i’ll just get a stillsuit
NoVA’Dib is wise in the ways of the desert. NoVA’Dib creates his own water. NoVA’Dib hides from the sun and travels in the cool night.
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OMFG, NoVa!
I’m literally quivering now!
Shai-Hulud!
I’m in full geek mode now!
Damn, now I need a towel.
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Brent, why are mortgage rates falling?
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This has GOT to be trolling.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/outward/2014/06/26/infant_gender_assignment_unnecessary_and_potentially_harmful.html
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McWing:
You beat me to it. I was just about to post a link to that idiotic Slate article.
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Test.
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Lost a pithy comment, thus the test. Apparently I need to post a dummy comment after logging in or reload the page or something. Anyhoo, I read the Slate article.
“It’s a boy or a girl, based on nothing more than a cursory assessment of your offspring’s genitals.”
That offends me semantically.
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The US ends the season 1-1-1 and on a downhill slide yet still makes the playoffs. What is this, hockey? Where else is a perfectly average .500 record seen as something to cheer about? No wonder everybody gets a trophy in youth soccer. It’s preparation for the World Cup.
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Damn.
If Ann Coulter is against soccer now I have to be for it.
Sample:
Try the veal, she’ll be here all week.
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Despite being a former player and an ardent soccer fan, I am actually fairly sympathetic to a lot of the American critiques of the game. However, I do get irritated by the right-wing association of soccer with the metric system (James Taranto routinely refers to soccer as “metric football”.) Soccer actually embraces the imperial, not metric, system of measurement.
The rectangle around the mouth of the goal is known as the “6-yard box”, not the 5.49 meter box. The penalty box is 18 yards from from the touch line and goal posts. No one thought that 16.46 meters was just the right dimension. The penalty kick spot is defined as 12 yards from the goal line, not 10.97 meters from it. A standard field is a nice round 100 yards…or a not so nice round 91.44 meters The center circle is an even 10 yards in radius, which is a not so even 9.14 meters. Touch lines are supposed to be 5 inches wide (or 12.7 centimeters). You get the idea.
Soccer is a complete repudiation of the metric system.
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I love Ann Coulter (she’s like a right wing Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann all mixed together) but concur with Scott. Soccer is imperial. BTW, the metric system is a great system of measurement, but does not confer benefits that make it remotely worthwhile to convert existing mileage signs and rulers and other forms of non-metric measurement. There are no additional efficiencies available by converting systems currently using imperial measurements.
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@McWing: I don’t think the Slate article is trolling. I think it’s entirely serious. I knew people in college for whom this would have resonated as deeply insightful and fundamentally true 25 years ago. Who said things not unlike this (but who were hyperaware of gender themselves, with no sense of irony, when it came to boycotting art history classes containing 18th century nudes).
In my lost pithy comment, I observed what most offends me is how appalling the rhetoric is. This applies to the argument of “increased risk of heat stroke” and how humans have essentially never lived anywhere hot before AGW (wtf?). While I have no problem with advocating for tolerance and acceptance and normalization of niche sexual orientations so that there is a general cultural acceptance of transgendered folks, the argument presented in the Slate article is horribly, horribly, appallingly bad. It’s so bad, back to front, that were sloppy rhetoric a misdemeanor, that article would represent a federal crime.
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if it were imperial the shots would be more precise.
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“But there’s an obvious difference: Monkey Parking’s solution intended to generate profit off of a public good by rewarding those who are able to pay — and shutting out the less affluent. That’s outrageous and not something any civilized society should tolerate.”
Making money by providing a necessary or useful service is intolerable. Plus, available parking encourages the reckless burning of fossil fuels. Why does the author hate our planet?
” to decide it could solve a San Francisco municipal problem with a blatantly illegal business model”
Adjectives tell us the author thinks we’re too stupid to realize how bad something is unless he helps us to comport our thoughts within acceptable boundaries.
What local or federal statute made auctioning off your parking spot illegal? Why should that be illegal? Someone is going to be parking there, how does a notification system make any difference? Would it be okay if the App were strictly informational, or made it’s revenue via ad placement rather than auctions?
“Government is an irrelevant obstacle, while the benefits of sharing economy apps trickle down to everyone!”
I have a hard time seeing how this is inaccurate.
“Let’s take a moment to appreciate the chutzpah at work here. Monkey Parking is an Italian start-up based in Rome. Dobrowolny is claiming the right to operate as he pleases in a foreign municipality and even dares to claim that his business model is constitutionally protected free speech! Talk about your classic transnational neocolonialist libertarian arrogance!”
And no sense of irony, at all. I assume the author supports the mass deportation of illegal immigrants? Or is he only selectively xenophobic?
“Italian software developers know better than the “local authorities” what’s right for San Francisco.”
Those damn wops. Hate to find out what kind of rhetoric we’d be getting if the company had been located in Israel.
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I’m pretty sure “Wops” is spelled with a capital W.
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McWing;
I’m pretty sure “Wops” is spelled with a capital W.
Is it more or less offensive with a capital “W”? I can see an argument for either.
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That question sounds suspiciously transphobic.
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Speaking of offensive names, here’s how to undermine the case for changing the name of the Washington Redskins:
“The U.S. military’s racial slur
Simon Waxman
Calling our helicopters Apache is just as offensive as calling a football team Redskins.”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/simon-waxman-tomahawk-missiles-apache-helicopters-just-as-offensive-as-redskins/2014/06/26/16c18738-fc9a-11e3-932c-0a55b81f48ce_story.html?hpid=z2
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