Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktMarkets are higher this morning as ECB President Mario Draghi speaks and bank earnings continue to trickle in.
Mortgage Applications fell 2.3% last week. Purchases were down 3.1%, while refis were down 1.8%.
Some weaker economic data this morning: the Empire Manufacturing Index fell steeply in April, to -1.19 vs. 6.9 expected, while industrial production fell .6% and capacity utilization fell to 78.4%. Can’t blame this on the weather – blame the dollar.
Bank of America reported that mortgage originations increased 18% QOQ and 54% on a YOY basis. Between JPM, BAC, and WFC, it looks like the mortgage business is improving quite a bit. Maybe the long-awaited turn in the real estate sector is upon us. We will get more data tomorrow with housing starts and building permits.
Builder confidence rose 4 points in March, according to the NAHB.
Hillary officially launched her campaign over the weekend, unveiling her new logo, which looks like “Hospital Thataway.” Suffice it to say, the H logo appears to be a bomb, and the interwebs are already making fun of it.
Best one so far:
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist: Also funny is that Hillary’s arrow points to the right…
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How to stonewall and get away with it:
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This is perfect:
“Has Obamacare Turned Voters Against Sharing the Wealth?
APRIL 15, 2015
Thomas B. Edsall
With the advent of the Affordable Care Act, the share of Americans convinced that health care is a right shrank from a majority to a minority.”
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best tweet i saw about the logo “She left her turn signal on”
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@jnc4p:
“The erosion of the belief in health care as a government-protected right is perhaps the most dramatic reflection of these trends. In 2006, by a margin of more than two to one, 69-28, those surveyed by Gallup said that the federal government should guarantee health care coverage for all citizens of the United States.”
I always wonder about the questions and the assumption being made, re: semantics. That is, you can believe the government ought to do something without think it’s a right, natural or otherwise. I think the government should spend some limited funds on space exploration. I don’t think that’s a “right” I have or that we have collectively, I think it’s just a good idea.
While I don’t think government should fund healthcare (I actually don’t think there should be 3rd party payer in healthcare, period: just catastrophic health insurance).
Same thing with the idea that people are opposed to “sharing the wealth”. What they really mean is that people are turning against the idea of government (a) mandating that the wealth be shared and (b) doing all the deciding as how said wealth is redistributed.
I am 100% for wealth redistribution. I think if Bill Gates wants to give all his money to charities, that’s great. If Warren Buffet wants to redistribute his wealth for research and aid to the 3rd world, I’m all for it. I think he should, actually: I think all super wealthy people should redistribute their wealth in ways that can positively impact humanity, spur innovation, fund research, etc. They are uniquely positioned to do so.
I also happen to think that’s none of the government’s business, and they should be largely out of the wealth-redistribution game.
I suspect if you put the question as “is it a good idea for billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet to use their wealth to fund charities, help the poor, fund research that might help make food and medicine more plentiful, etch, etc” I think you’d find most people support wealth redistribution. What they don’t support is wealth confiscation, and a cadre of elite bureaucrats deciding who gets what, where, and why. At least, that’s my opinion on the matter.
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KW:
I think you’d find most people support wealth redistribution. What they don’t support is wealth confiscation, and a cadre of elite bureaucrats deciding who gets what, where, and why.
Unfortunately I think there are a huge number of people who support wealth confiscation (of others) to be doled out by a cadre of elite bureaucrats. We have (or had) a whole slew of them posting here at ATiM, and many more at our original place of interaction, PL. Progressive taxation (and the constant demand for more) and the massive welfare state that it funds hasn’t grown to its current proportions in spite of widespread opposition to it. It has grown because large numbers of people find it perfectly acceptable, if not outright desire it.
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Yeah, I didn’t argue that nobody supports wealth confiscation, obviously many do. Anyone who considers capitalism to be evil, and there are certain those people who do, will support wealth confiscation, as the highest ideal is that everybody is provided for and nobody has anything more than anybody else.
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No offense to Hillary, but did a 1st year graphic design student do that logo for her?
Sheesh. One thing that Desktop Publishing really killed is graphic design. There used to be shops all over the place that did design work; now everybody is doing it for themselves. Used to be, a brand manager would contact us about a package, we’d do the design, and they’d approve or disapprove and do various things to make the design worse. But still, professional designers touched it at some point. Now, lots of brand managers just do the designs themselves and give it to whoever is left to make it print, somehow. I remember when it was easy to find a design job or a job at a print shop. Not anymore! Damn you, technology!
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“It has grown because large numbers of people find it perfectly acceptable, if not outright desire it.”
As long as the taxes are confined to someone else. When it hits them, support drops dramatically.
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jnc:
As long as the taxes are confined to someone else. When it hits them, support drops dramatically.
Exactly. It should come as no revelation that people oppose confiscation of their own wealth. The political question is whether they support confiscation of OPM, especially OPM belonging to the likes of Gates and Buffet. And far too many people do.
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Worth a read:
“The Myth of Police Reform
The real problem is the belief that all our social problems can be solved with force.
Ta-Nehisi Coates
Apr 15 2015, 2:32 PM ET”
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/04/the-myth-of-police-reform/390057/
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Couldn’t we also argue that our deficit / debt are testament to society’s dislike of redistribution?
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McWing:
Couldn’t we also argue that our deficit / debt are testament to society’s dislike of redistribution?
The debt/deficit is just a way of confiscating from a different set of people.
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I’m not so sure of that Scott, considering that we keep refinancing the debt means we keep delaying when the bill is due. I don’t think most people think concretely about it and therefore don’t think that it will have to be paid by someone. Ultimately it will be due in the future, not now and therefore will not require redistribution.
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McWing:
I don’t think most people think concretely about it and therefore don’t think that it will have to be paid by someone.
I think it is true that most people probably don’t think about it too deeply. But I doubt that there is a substantial number of people who think that the welfare state is supported by just borrowed money that no one will have to pay back.
I think the left engages so much in class politics for the simple reason that it works. There are a lot of people who really do think not only that it is perfectly OK to take from Peter to pay Paul, but that it is morally obligatory to do so. We’ve heard those arguments made right here.
Forget about whether the tax base is big enough to support the entire welfare state without borrowing from future generations. The primary justification for the welfare state in the first place, as well as our progressive tax structure, is the forced redistribution of wealth. If large numbers of people didn’t buy into it, we wouldn’t have it.
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What I mean is a potential tax on a potential child or grandchild is to abstract and distant to be considered redistribution.
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t most people probably don’t think about it too deeply. But I doubt that there is a substantial number of people who think that the welfare state is supported by just borrowed money that no one will have to pay back.
That’s Robert Barro’s argument but I’m not convinced it applies anymore. We’ve borrowed so much for so long with people oblivious to the consequence I no longer think it applies. Call it The Frog in Boiling Water effect.
Forget about whether the tax base is big enough to support the entire welfare state without borrowing from future generations. The primary justification for the welfare state in the first place, as well as our progressive tax structure, is the forced redistribution of wealth. If large numbers of people didn’t buy into it, we wouldn’t have it.
I won’t argue you point, to quote Ray Zalinski, “What the American public doesn’t know is what makes them the American public.”
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