Stocks are flattish this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.
New Home Sales fell in September to a seasonally-adjusted annual rate of 468,000, down from 529,000 in August. The median home price rose 13.5% however to $296,000. So, inventory is tight, and the builders continue to raise prices but aren’t really ramping up production. Builder sentiment is at a 10 year high, but building permits continue to disappoint. Strange state of affairs.
The FOMC meets this Tuesday and Wednesday. The decision will be out around 2:00 on Wednesday. The markets are handicapping a very low probability of a move at this meeting (something under 10%). Mohammed El-Arian lays out the no-action case.
We will get some important economic data this week with Durable Goods tomorrow and Case-Shiller. On Wed we will get the FOMC decision, and on Thursday, the first estimate of third quarter GDP. Finally, on Friday we get personal income and personal spending. GDP, the FOMC statement, and personal income / personal spending are the biggest chances of volatility in the bond markets.
Deutsche Bank is predicting a good holiday season this year for retailers. The average consumer intends to spend about $812 on gifts this year, which is about the same level in 2007. Punch line: “U.S. consumers don’t seem to worry about the risk of a hard landing in China, the widening of high yield credit spreads, a potential government shutdown, Brazilian corporate debt levels or low bond market liquidity.” We will get personal income and personal spending data on Friday. FedEx confirmed they expect record shipments this holiday season.
House prices rose 0.3% last month and are up 5.5% from a year ago, according to Black Knight Financial Services. The index came in at $253,000, which is off 5.3% from its June 2006 peak of $268,000.
Filed under: Morning Report |
Thank God this asshole lost.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/10/20/mitt-romney-demise-of-legacy-media-empowering-conservative-insurgents-preventing-more-collaborative-action/
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“The rise of new media outlets in the Internet age has allowed regular Americans to get access to information that the mainstream press, with the help of the both political establishments, often concealed from the general public when, as Romney noted, Americans all received the same set of facts.”
And Romney thinks that is a bad thing…
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My opinion of Romney just nosedived. How can any sentient conservative lament the demise of the network media monopoly on information? Unbelievable.
He also laments that DC has such a “hard time getting things done,” but can’t figure out the correlation between increasing the things that are being attempted and the difficulty in getting them done. So disappointing.
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Carter: ‘Combat’ death does not mean ‘combat role’
http://www.militarytimes.com/story/military/pentagon/2015/10/23/combat-death/74473756/
Not that you needed more evidence, but they think we are fools.
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They’re correct in their thinking.
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The Romney quoted are particularly funny given the only people that defended Romney in 2012 was the very new media he decried without them his loss would have rivaled Carter or Mondale.
I cannot fathom why Conservatives support Republicans.
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I cannot fathom why Conservatives support Republicans.
Because they are less bad than democrats
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Brent:
Because they are less bad than democrats
That’s a bingo.
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BTW, today is the 14th anniversary of our Wise Latina’s Wise Latina speech. Read it if you need to be reminded of how truly awful she is.
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Do Democrats lie to their voters?
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Mcwing:
Do Democrats lie to their voters?
“If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.”
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McWing:
Do Democrats lie to their voters?
“When Governor Romney says that we should eliminate funding for Planned Parenthood, there are millions of women all across the country who rely on Planned Parenthood for not just contraceptive care. They rely on it for mammograms, for cervical cancer screenings.” – Barack Obama
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2 year budget deal in the works.
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2 year budget deal in the works.
I take it the sequester is going to get sacrificed… The only thing worth a damn to come out of this administration…
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I’d argue on the Planned Parent front that most elected Democrats actually believe the propaganda PP puts out and wouldn’t think to challenge it, so in that vein they believe they are being truthful.
On Scott’s first point, touche.
Ultimately for me, it’s a decision between death by lethal injection or guillotine, doesn’t really matter in the end.
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McWing:
I’d argue on the Planned Parent front that most elected Democrats actually believe the propaganda PP puts out and wouldn’t think to challenge it, so in that vein they believe they are being truthful.
The George Costanza defense!
Ultimately for me, it’s a decision between death by lethal injection or guillotine, doesn’t really matter in the end.
I understand the point you were making. R politicians are probably more guilty than D’s of a particular kind of deception. The trouble is that politicians by nature want to accrue power, and so there is a certain and inevitable discontinuity for politicians that profess to want to shrink government. Their professional inclinations stand in opposition to their (claimed) ideological inclinations. The same can definitely not be said of politicians on the left. Their professional inclinations to accrue power are perfectly aligned with their ideological inclinations to give more power to the government. So on that score anyway I guess an R politician is more apt to be seen as lying to his constituents than a D politician.
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We’ll see if there are actual entitlement cuts in the deal.
“While congressional aides cautioned that the deal was far from certain, and the White House and Treasury Department declined to comment, officials briefed on the negotiations said the emerging accord would call for cuts in spending on Medicare and Social Security disability benefits.”
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Does anybody here believe that?
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“We’ll see if there are actual entitlement cuts in the deal.”
from what i’ve seen …. there are not.
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gets more budget deal details. punches virtual wall
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So full cave by the Republicans?
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sure looks like it. raise caps on discretionary and non- for 2 years.
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If he chooses to embrace it, this is perfect fodder for Trump.
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And Cruz, no?
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cruz is going to go nuts on the floor. and he’ll be demonized because it’s the debt ceiling and if we default the earth will spin off its axis. i say fine.
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because it’s the debt ceiling and if we default the earth will spin off its axis.
(Sigh)
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Exactly, the more elected Republicans say how hated Cruz is, the better it is for him in the Primary. Rubios feeble attempts at criticizing the Senate sound contrived, Cruz can say he’s hated because he’s a disrupter, Rubio sounds like a quitter. What happens if he’s President, Senate will still be the problem he says it is, does he get bored and quit? Does he go around it like Obama? Is that what Republican primary voters want?
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I’d say this is put up or shut up time for Cruz & the Freedom Caucus. If they can’t convince enough Republicans in the House to vote against this deal to take it down, especially after Pelosi signs on, then they are useless.
I figured they would do a CR at sequester levels and a clean debt ceiling increase as the worse case scenario.
This is a worse deal than when the Democrats had the Senate.
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Why is making it infinitesimally more difficult for the Federal government to borrow Ibteredt free money a bad thing? I thought easy money was a moral hazard? See Real Estate collapse of 2008.
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“and he’ll be demonized because it’s the debt ceiling and if we default the earth will spin off its axis.”
Or do that separately and move a CR at sequester levels for the spending.
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When the raised the debt ceiling in 2011 it was over. The Tea Baggers in the House proved they were liars. Whatya gonna do?
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“because it’s the debt ceiling and if we default the earth will spin off its axis.”
There’s not going to be a default regardless. There’s plenty of revenue to service the actual Treasury debt.
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you and I know that. but the media onslaught would be relentless. they’d cave and get nothing out of it.
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nova:
but the media onslaught would be relentless. they’d cave and get nothing out of it.
I’m informed by Kevin that the media doesn’t really have much power any more to drive the popular narrative.
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Trust the Republicans to screw up the status quo CR, the one thing that can always pass.
I’m guessing that Boehner uses this as a vehicle to ease his transition into lobbyist?
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that was already set if he wanted it.
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The desire for Universal Pre-K is a case of hope over evidence.
http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2015/10/new-results-on-preschool-from-a-tennessee-rct.html?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+marginalrevolution%2Ffeed+%28Marginal+Revolution%29
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Drudge has been touting this Germaine Greer / Tranny issues interview all weekend.
IT’S AWESOME!!!
I can’t decide which is better, the questioner’s persistence or Greer’s answers.
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@scottc1: the media still has power with DC politicians because they don’t want to have the media turn on them. The general public, not so much. Nothing like it used to be. Not even close. But most DC politicians are like LBJ, and feel like if Walter Cronkite says bad things about you it’s the end of your career.
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KW:
the media still has power with DC politicians because they don’t want to have the media turn on them
Why would they care, if the media narrative had no effect on their re-election prospects? I think politicians’ highest priority is getting re-elected, and are usually pretty tuned in to what does and does not effect voters’ perceptions. The idea that they are more concerned about the media narrative for its own sake than about the narrative the voters actually embrace doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.
But most DC politicians are like LBJ, and feel like if Walter Cronkite says bad things about you it’s the end of your career.
The only people who can end a politician’s career are voters. If a politician is worried that Walter Cronkite is gong to end his career, it can only be because he thinks the narrative Cronkite promotes is going to effect voters’ perceptions.
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http://www.ew.com/article/2015/10/26/jennifer-lawrence-actresses-fight-back
Men and women will be at war with each other forever and always. This has it always been and thus will it always be.
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Ain’t nothing it can’t do.
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From CQ re the budget deal:
Procedurally, lawmakers smoothed the path for the legislation by attaching it to a House tax bill (HR 1314) that became the Senate’s vehicle for a trade package. That means the bill might pass faster because it would not be subject to a motion to proceed in the Senate, since it already passed there.
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Another reason women are stupid.
https://twitter.com/SistaSimone/status/652648580747034626
This is even funnier.
http://www.vpc.org/studies/hoseone.htm
“Bullet Hoses.” Snicker.
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My favorite response.
https://twitter.com/UA_NICD/status/658848758961049601
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“Unnecessary gun accessory: Barrel shrouds allow killers to shoot faster and deliver more thrust per squeeze”
Hah! Everybody knows it’s the rectomatic toadfloater option that allows you to shoot faster and deliver more thrust per squeeze. The barrel shroud is strictly for making bullets go straighter and spin more so they drill into the victim.
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@scottc1: “Why would they care, if the media narrative had no effect on their re-election prospects?”
Because it has an effect on their colleague reputation, party machine support, and cocktail party invitations. And what Sunday shows they get invited on, and how they get treated once there.
Obscure alternative media that preaches to the choir about how so-and-so is a RINO or some Democrat is throwing in the the neocons is arguably a much more power media narrative in terms of influencing voters. That’s what they ought to be scared of. But if politicians understood the sea change in the media landscape they never would have been caught by surprise by the Tea Partiers (who, in turn, seem very likely to be caught by surprise by the next wave of challengers . . . politicians never learn!)
I think a lot of people in DC believe the mass media remains powerful, and while it does to some extent, it has (a) lost a lot of power and (b) has had that power equalized, as conservative media has become ascendant. There’s a reason why from Clinton onward the left has wanted to shut up Rush and Obama targeted Fox News. Also, people are more skeptical of the news, and I think that’s only going to continue.
I still argue that media simply isn’t the vector by which liberalism is dominating. It’s primarily entertainment (popular media) and higher education. And I don’t think either vector is taking its marching orders or setting its narrative by what shows up on NPR or in the NYT.
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KW:
Obscure alternative media that preaches to the choir about how so-and-so is a RINO or some Democrat is throwing in the the neocons is arguably a much more power media narrative in terms of influencing voters. That’s what they ought to be scared of.
Members of congress have a re-election rate of roughly 90%. That suggests to me that they have a pretty good handle on which narrative sources they need to fear.
I still argue that media simply isn’t the vector by which liberalism is dominating. It’s primarily entertainment (popular media) and higher education. And I don’t think either vector is taking its marching orders or setting its narrative by what shows up on NPR or in the NYT.
I guess, then, it is just a remarkable coincidence that the narrative first developed and pushed by the NYT (and the MSM more generally) is so often the same one that shows up on TV shows, in the movies, and on campus.
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@mcwing: “American pediatricians: climate change poses health and safety risks to children”
Climate changes caused my chewing gum to lose it’s flavor on my bedpost overnight.
Climate change increases the divorce rate.
ISIS recruitment up because of Climate Change.
I stubbed my toe on Climate Change.
Clearly, the only answer is a big, fat carbon tax to ultimately be paid by poor and middle-class consumers and a new Climate Change Agency with broad regulatory powers and perhaps and enforcement arm to deal with “deniers”.
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