Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktStocks are lower this morning on no real market-moving news. Bonds and MBS are down.
Mortgage Applications rose 1.2% as refis rose 3.5% and purchases were flat.
Wholesale inventories fell by 0.1% as sales were flat.
Mortgage credit availability fell in November, according to the MBA. This means credit standards increased. Conventional loans tightened while government loans loosened slightly. While mortgage credit availability has increased steadily since the US residential real estate market bottomed in 2012, it is still a shadow of its former self.
The MBA has its latest survey on mortgage bank profitability and volume. Last quarter, the average gain on a mortgage for independent mortgage bankers and the mortgage subsidiaries of banks fell from $1,522 to $1,238 (or about 55 basis points). On a year-over-year basis, it was an increase from $897 (or 42 bps) in the third quarter of 2014. Average volume in the third quarter was $614 million (or 2,609 units), which was the second highest print since 2008. Lots of useful stats in this survey.
While home prices have been appreciating at a mid single digit clip, rental prices have been increasing even faster. Last year, nearly half of all renters spent at least 30% of their in rent, which qualifies as cost-burdened. A quarter paid 50%. This is creating an affordable housing problem, especially in urban areas.
The Fannie Mae Home Purchase Sentiment Index fell a couple of points as increasing prices and limited inventory are making things difficult for potential buyers. Second, consumers are becoming a touch more pessimistic about their future incomes.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist!
Ha ha!
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Bah, humbug! That’s what I get for doing some actual work. . .
Brent, I’m assuming that the refi’s are a higher percentage than mortgages because people are trying to avoid the Fed’s rate raise?
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This is spot on:
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The goal of convincing a Republican primary electorate that Trump is personally unequal to the job of president is unlikely to succeed.
I wonder how much of Trump’s support derives primarily from total disdain of the R establishment, and a desire to embarrass it by saddling it with this clown, not a sincere belief that Trump is equal to the job.
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“a desire to embarrass it by saddling it with this clown”
I think it’s more of a case of supporting Trump because he makes all the right people mad, not a sophisticated attempt to embarrass the establishment.
Or perhaps the same logic as from Full Metal Jacket:
http://www.moviequotedb.com/movies/full-metal-jacket/quote_9011.html
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jnc:
I was listening to a Federalist Radio Hour podcast last night, and it was an interview with Aaron Renn of the Manhattan Institute. He spoke about how his father, a lifelong Republican, was a Trump supporter, and when he asked him why, his father told him (rough paraphrase) “I now hate the Republican Party, and Trump can destroy it. I will support Trump until it is destroyed, and then I will vote for someone else.” I wonder if he is representative of a reasonable portion of Trump supporters.
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Before he went completely off the rails I could have foreseen casting a Trump vote out of spite. And i’m financially secure. If I wasn’t?
He makes the right people mad and his (current) immigration position is the only one that the base wants.
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You cribbed one of my favorite lines:
“Gunnery Sergeant Hartman: I want that head so sanitary and squared away that the Virgin Mary herself would be proud to go in there and take a dump!”
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My vote doesn’t count, so I’ll vote for whoever the Libertarian candidate is…
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Brent:
My vote doesn’t count…
Nor mine.
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you should write in JNC.
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I’d already planned to vote for Gary Johnson, but that’s because I found Trump’s position on Eminent Domain to be disqualifying.
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Interesting points by David French at NR:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/428200/donald-trump-overton-window-american-political-debate
The leftward pressure on the Overton Window has been relentless, with conservatives reduced to applying herculean effort to simply maintain the cultural and political status quo. Yes, the Tea Party has nudged Republicans just a bit to the right, but it’s a sign of the success of the Left that a relatively unchanged GOP can be labeled as ever more extreme and “reactionary.” And few realities show this leftist success better than the fact that the Window now enables expressions of overt leftist hatred and bigotry — against Christians, against conservatives, against whites, and often against Jews. Then along came Donald Trump. On key issues, he didn’t just move the Overton Window, he smashed it, scattered the shards, and rolled over them with a steamroller. On issues like immigration, national security, and even the manner of political debate itself, there’s no window left. Registration of Muslims? On the table. Bans on Muslims entering the country? On the table. Mass deportation? On the table. Walling off our southern border at Mexico’s expense? On the table. The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics.
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There is a chunk of the population that does not believe it’s demands and impossible to achieve and immoral to believe.
Many had thought these ideas had been dust-binned and are bubbled enough to be shocked that seemingly normal, everyday Americans desire things long ago disposed of. That reaction is very interesting to watch, particularly when it comes to those on the right.
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The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics.
That line will set off the false equivalency alarms at Salon and Vox…
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That line will set off the false equivalency alarms at Salon and Vox…
That was my favorite line!
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“The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics.”
This was a great observation about the ultimate outcome of identity politics:
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Nor mine
But at least now mine goes the correct way! 🙂
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One of my co-workers has a kid in high school and he left one of his papers on the copier. The subject was how WWII was fought for women’s and minorities’ equality.
I shit you not.
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I guess the left is taking on football now… sigh…
http://www.salon.com/2015/12/09/lets_have_a_war_on_football_greed_brain_damage_tax_breaks_to_billionaires_and_the_debate_we_need_to_have_about_the_nfl/?utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=socialflow
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The subject was how WWII was fought for women’s and minorities’ equality.
It wasn’t?
j/k And I thought the history classes I had in high school were bad!
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@brent: I have to admit, the phrase “War on Football” cracked me up. Does no one remember George Carlin??
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the funny think is Truman didn’t integrate the army until after the war…
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The subject was how WWII was fought for women’s and minorities’ equality.
We went to war over the Rape of Nanking. It just took us four years to get suitably outraged.
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@yellojkt: “We went to war over the Rape of Nanking. It just took us four years to get suitably outraged.”
It took Pearl Harbor to finally make us pay attention to it!
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@Scottc1: “Yes, the Tea Party has nudged Republicans just a bit to the right, but it’s a sign of the success of the Left that a relatively unchanged GOP can be labeled as ever more extreme and “reactionary.””
I think it’s also a victory of image over substance, or form over function. That is, I’d like someone to point out extreme and reactionary laws that conservatives have passed or seriously advanced, or victories of “extreme and reactionary” conservatism in the courts or elsewhere. While the rhetoric on the right may be over-the-top by the estimation of liberals and moderates, I’m not seeing anything actually happening that would suggest radical conservatism is on the march through the halls of Washington.
Arguably, the neocons have been successful in setting our foreign policy orientation and a prejudice towards policing the world and staging regular military interventions. And Dubya engineered a modest tax cut. What else?
“The current GOP front-runner is advocating policies that represent the mirror-image extremism to the Left’s race and identity-soaked politics.”
This is everybody’s favorite line, apparently, and it seems to me to be to be exactly true. I find it interesting that a broad spectrum of conservatives here, at least, can see that Trump-and-Tea-Party is a mirror image of the left’s race-and-identity politics but I’m dubious that many on the left would see it that way.
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KW:
While the rhetoric on the right may be over-the-top by the estimation of liberals and moderates, I’m not seeing anything actually happening that would suggest radical conservatism is on the march through the halls of Washington.
Agreed. This is something I have been pointing out here at ATiM for years.
Arguably, the neocons have been successful in setting our foreign policy orientation and a prejudice towards policing the world and staging regular military interventions.
I wonder if it really is true that the US has been more interventionist or done more policing in the last, say, 15 years than it had prior to that. We’ve been policing the world pretty much ever since the end of WWII, although perhaps the reasons for our interventions have changed since the end of the Cold War.
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