Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktMarkets are getting slammed as China revalued the yuan at a weaker level than expected. Bonds and MBS are up on the flight to safety trade.
Mortgage Applications fell 11.6% last week as purchases fell 11% and refis fell 12%.
The ADP Employment Change came in at 257k, much better than the 198k Street expectation. Note Friday’s jobs report is forecasting an increase of 200k.
The ISM Non-Manufacturing Index fell to 55.3 from 55.9 last month.
Factory Orders fell 0.2% in November, while durable goods orders were flat. Capital Goods orders (a proxy for business capital expenditures) fell 0.3%.
Fed Vice Chairman Stanley Fischer says that 4 rate hikes this year is “in the ballpark” of what to expect. Note the FOMC minutes are scheduled to be released at 2:00 pm EST today.
Banks are taking down their estimates of Q3 GDP based on the lousy ISM data. Deutsche Bank took down Q4 to 0.5% from 1.5%. The Atlanta Fed took it down to 0.7% from 1.3%.
While inventories and exports are pushing down the GDP data, consumption seems to be turning around. 2015 was the best year for vehicle sales in the US since 2000. While some of that undoubtedly has to do with easy financing (some calling autos the new subprime) most was due to a replacement cycle that was long overdue.
Speaking of autos, GM is inventing in Lyft, the competitor to Uber. This is to have a foothold in the future of summonable driverless cars.
Filed under: Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist!
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Darn you, Kevin Willis!
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Victory!
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Gary Johnson is running as a Libertarian again. I hope he gets at least 10% of the popular vote.
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I hope he does too!!! I’ve spent most of my political life campaigning for and voting for third parties and I don’t dislike him. Almost voted for him last time.
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I did vote for him last time. Likely I will vote for him again, when it comes down to it. Protest vote!
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then vote for him and make it happen.
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I will……….no one else to vote for anyway!
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Clinton, Trump and Johnson would be interesting, especially if Johnson actually got in the debates.
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Gives me someone to vote for. Again. And yes, I hope he gets into the debates.
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Since my vote won’t count either in NY or CA, I will definitely vote for him..
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Same here. My vote won’t count in TN, as it will go for the Republican. But I’ll be there, protesting with my vote!
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Lol, we found a candidate we all want to vote for………..hip, hip hooray, ATiM!!!
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I have a question, did someone choose this commenting style with the nested comments or did it just happen spontaneously?
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lms:
I have a question, did someone choose this commenting style with the nested comments or did it just happen spontaneously?
It happened spontaneously several weeks ago. I think WordPress did an update and forced the nested comments. Not a fan.
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I’m not either, it’s much more difficult to follow the conversation IMO. Maybe we can change it? I hesitate to suggest that though since I haven’t been here in such a long time…..I don’t really have any authority to dictate…..LOL
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BTW, would you vote for Johnson or is voting against a D more important to you?
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lms:
BTW, would you vote for Johnson or is voting against a D more important to you?
Where I live it probably won’t matter how I vote. The D will win regardless. If the nominee is Trump, I could conceivably vote third party, but probably not, as whoever has an R after their name will have a better chance than a third party candidate of beating the D nominee, even if that R is Trump. Limiting the further damage of leftist ideology is my main goal, and so voting for the least left electable candidate is what I will do. Trump is hardly reliably non-leftist (in fact that is my main problem with him), and I worry especially about what he might do with a Supreme Court nomination, but not nearly as much as I worry about what HRC, or any D, would do with it. Indeed I know what they would do with it, and it will be very, very bad, especially if they aren’t simply replacing an already bad justice like RBG or the Wise Latina.
I think “moderates” who focus mainly on individual qualities of the nominee vastly underestimate the importance of ideological inclinations. Having a smart, quality politician is all well and good, but not if he is focused on achieving the wrong things. I also think that anyone who thinks the feds already do too much would do well to do whatever possible to prevent the one ideology that thirsts for greater federal influnece from gaining power.
I would like to be able to say that preventing progressives from gaining the presidency is less important than preventing them from controlling congress, but given the ever-increasing use of executive power, the federal bureaucracy and the courts to get around congress, I don’t think that is true any more.
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We can change that part back, but what happens is then replies start appearing right under the replied to post. This cannot be changed and is, if anything, more difficult to follow. You have to look at the time stamps to tell if it’s a new post, and figure out where it fits in the conversation. This is kind of a way of dealing with that.
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KW:
This cannot be changed and is, if anything, more difficult to follow.
Agreed. What we have is better than the alternative. And since I always post comments from the dashboard rather than the actual posts, I have to “reply” rather than post as a “new” comment. From the dashboard perspective, I still see everything as I always did, so I am really not bothered. But I can see that, from the post perspective, I may cause confusion by burying what is actually a “new” comment in the “replies” to another.
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No worries you guys, I can always just reply from the dashboard like Scott does and I don’t claim any leadership here any longer to make changes anyway.
I was really just curious how it came about and I can see how changing isn’t really feasible.
I pay for the domain name yearly and I’m happy to do that as it seems all of you still enjoy the conversations…..that’s great! But, I don’t plan on becoming too involved really at this point. I just missed a couple of comments and wondered if there was a better way which it doesn’t sound like there is.
It is an election year though and I’m always curious about everyone’s reasoning re their votes.
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lms:
I pay for the domain name yearly
How much do you pay? You shouldn’t be paying anything since we pay annually for the Premium Package, which is supposed to cover the domain name, I think. I renewed it just today, and after I paid it my receipt said that the Domain, usually $13/year, was $0.00, included in Premium Package.
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Scott,
I would like to be able to say that preventing progressives from gaining the presidency is less important than preventing them from controlling congress, but given the ever-increasing use of executive power, the federal bureaucracy and the courts to get around congress, I don’t think that is true any more.
Knowing how you feel about the Supreme Court and executive action this makes a lot of sense to me re how you vote. Thanks for the explanation.
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@Scottc1: “and I worry especially about what he might do with a Supreme Court nomination”
You are right to be worried, I think. I agree both in SCOTUS and cabinet appointments he might make some very liberal, outside-the-beltway choices. Also, no wall on the border, because he can blame Mexico for not doing their part and paying for it.
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The alternative is, everybody agrees to post as a new comment and don’t “reply”.
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I’ll leave it up to the rest of you since I don’t know how long I’ll stick around…….:)
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BTW, I hope everyone East of me, which is all of you, is ready for some nasty weather. We’ve been living up to the El Nino forecast this week!!!!
And it’s not a warm El Nino like I was expecting……..it’s freaking cold for CA. I barely got my dog out for a walk/run this morning before it hit and it was worse than yesterday’s rain, plus an earthquake this morning….LOL
Two more storms headed our way tomorrow and Friday! Brace for weather!!!
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Oh man……….we haven’t had rain like this in years. It rained much of the day yesterday and then around 12:30 am it started pouring down with lightning and thunder for about 3 hours and it’s still raining. Our pool is about 4 inches deeper this morning.
I couldn’t even drive to the gym this morning because of street and even freeway flooding so I’m missing my deadlifts and squats today……LOL
If you’re inclined to stock up prior to a storm, now’s the time to do it!
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Another vote for Gary Johnson here in MD (as I did in 2012), since MD is safely blue no matter what.
FWIW, I prefer the nested comments to the out-of-sequence replies that WordPress had foisted on us. At least this way conversations stay together no matter when the comment is posted, and it’s easier to read through them if you drop in periodically during the day like I do.
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Mich:
Another vote for Gary Johnson here in MD (as I did in 2012), since MD is safely blue no matter what.
What if MD was not safely blue?
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Then–even if the candidate was Sec Clinton–I’d have to vote for the Democrat.
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Mich:
Then–even if the candidate was Sec Clinton–I’d have to vote for the Democrat.
So really you are just the mirror image of me…you are more interested in preventing R’s from winning than in voting for whatever candidate, even an unelectable one, you think would make the “best” president. Which I totally understand.
What I don’t understand, though, is the point of the “protest” vote as long as you know the D’s are going to win. To me that is kind of like a football coach suspending the team’s star QB for breaking team rules as long as he knows his team can win without the star, but if he faces a tough team, he let’s the star play even though he broke the rules, because he might not win without him. Not exactly a display of principle.
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For me, I’d have to think about it harder, but I’d still vote for Johnson if the Republican’s offered up another politicrat like Romney (or HRC, for that matter, or the once anointed now doomed Jeb!) . . . but I might be tempted to pull the lever for Trump in that situation, if he was the guy. President Trump just promises to be too interesting.
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I would find a Trump presidency far more amusing than a Cruz presidency but I’m not sure that should be my final criteria for who I vote for in the primary.
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To each their own! It would likely be my almost final criteria in this election, were a protest vote not possible, given the alternatives. That is, since given the choices I don’t personally think a competent, desirable candidate is available to vote for (ultimately, I’m not sure Gary Johnson qualifies in that [competency] regard, but I digress) . . . entertainment value is all I have to go on!
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So really you are just the mirror image of me…you are more interested in preventing R’s from winning than in voting for whatever candidate, even an unelectable one, you think would make the “best” president.
I’m not entirely stupid.
Not exactly a display of principle.
I’m not entirely stupid. Standing on principle in order to risk the election of someone I think would make a horrible president seems like a really bad idea.
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Ask Nader voters in Florida how happy they were with the Bush Administration.
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yello:
Ask Nader voters in Florida how happy they were with the Bush Administration.
However unhappy they may have been with the Bush admin, they were clearly voting on principle or out of protest. The question I have is not why third party supporters vote the way they do when it matters, as it did in Florida. The question I have is why anyone would support a third party candidate only when it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t make sense to me. Again, it is sort of like “punishing” someone only if you know the punishment won’t have any negative consequences for the punished.
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Mich:
I’m not entirely stupid.
I don’t think it is stupidity. For example, if Virginia was a toss-up state between the D and R, and jnc voted for a third party candidate that he considered better than either the D or R, I wouldn’t call it a stupid vote. I would call it a principled vote.
Standing on principle in order to risk the election of someone I think would make a horrible president seems like a really bad idea.
That is kind of my point. If you are not willing to stand on principle when it actually matters, it isn’t really a principle. Like I said, I totally understand your vote in an election that can go either way. What I don’t understand is a vote for a third party candidate only under the provision that the D will win anyway. It is not really a meaningful protest vote or principled vote if you do it only if you know it is doesn’t matter. Why not just vote for the D, if that is what you want to happen?
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Why not just vote for the D, if that is what you want to happen?
Because I’m hoping that the Democratic party will realize that they’re losing voters by not standing on their principles. A foolish hope, I know.
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Mich:
Because I’m hoping that the Democratic party will realize that they’re losing voters by not standing on their principles.
But it seems to me you are sending the exact opposite message. The D’s aren’t losing your vote in those instances when it actually needs it. Why should the party change its behavior if it knows you can be counted on to support it in a pinch anyway?
I think the way to send a message to the party is to threaten it with defeat, as both the Tea Party and Trump supporters are clearly willing to do. Telling the party “I won’t vote for you unless you actually need my vote” doesn’t seem likely to provoke a change.
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Priorities. That is, the priority principle is to vote against the worse of two evils. That is, I may want to tell the Republicans they are losing my vote, and might do it in the primary with a vote for Trump or other non-establishment candidate if available, but I might still show up and vote for Romney or Jeb! if they got the final nomination, though I would have to hold my nose to do it, in order to prevent Hillary Clinton from winning, if I felt that was a much worse outcome than a president Jeb!
Such votes are done on principle, but do not exist in a vacuum, and I might vote for the unelectable candidate because that’s me preference when I’m sure it doesn’t matter, but might vote against the electable candidate when I feel it might matter.
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KW:
Priorities….
Such votes are done on principle…
So I am told, but both the priority and the principle behind voting against the D’s only if I know they are going to win anyway escapes me.
I guess one could say that the main priority is getting D’s elected, and only a secondary priority is sending D’s a message. But in that case it seems to me that the priorities are contradictory. The only way to send the party a message via a vote is thru the threat of real consequences, but if the first priority is to get D’s elected, then by definition the threat of voting against them isn’t a meaningful one. It is like trying to stop baseball players from doping by issuing 30-day suspensions in December.
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^^^^^
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Mark:
More evidence of the increasing role that he fed plays in local/state decisions:
http://thefederalist.com/2016/01/07/is-planned-parenthood-entitled-to-taxpayer-money-for-all-eternity/
Whether Utah can decide for itself whether or not to subsize Planned Parenthood with state taxpayer funds is apparently a question to be decided by the Federal judiciary. Crazy.
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It is indeed. We seem to have gotten to a point where certain Moral Issues are “too important” to allow the mechanisms set forth at the founding of the country, such as “the passage of laws” and “amending the constitution through a 2/3rds majority” to be used or trusted. I’d have less trouble with progressivism generally if it wasn’t always trying to cut in line. 😉
I’m all for certain things embraced by the left (if not the Democrats) such as ending the war on drugs, avoiding military adventurism, and so on, but I want to see them as laws passed through congress (or, in certain cases, amendments to the constitution) rather that things decided by judicial fiat or issued as executive orders. I have very little problem with expanding gun regulation (making everybody who sells a gun into a “gun dealer” is a bridge to far, IMHO, but I digress). However, having it as an executive order (the same with having gay marriage and abortion decided by judicial fiat) is just the wrong way to do it. But I only see that getting worse as time goes on.
Tangent: I love all the memes about how Obama hasn’t issued as many executive orders as a few select Republicans (never mentioning what a piker he is compared to FDR, who issued enough executive orders to choke a herd of cattle) while never addressing the content of those executive orders, or how much of what should rightly be congressional authority such executive orders appropriated).
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@scottc1: “So I am told, but both the priority and the principle behind voting against the D’s only if I know they are going to win anyway escapes me.”
Again, priorities. It’s a protest vote, to let the establishment know they aren’t happy. And I suspect if a 3rd party had a chance to win, they would vote for that 3rd party. When you’re alternative is a repellant X candidate and a somewhat less repellant Y candidate, then the principle of not giving the worst possible person the top job supersedes the principle of voting for an unelectable candidate to send a message. It’s a simple IF/THEN of voting for the unelectable guy you know won’t win but think is the best candidate WHEN you know the least objectionable bad candidate is guaranteed to win OR both candidates are equally bad.
When you have a chance to keep someone awful from becoming president (in your mind) you vote on the principle that bad is better than worse, and you aren’t going to be the person who, voting for your unelectable preference, is going to let that awful person become president.
Unless both choices seem so awful you feel obligated to vote for Nader or Perot.
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What’s their incentive to accommodate you if they know you’ll be there whenever the need you?
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McWing:
What’s their incentive to accommodate you if they know you’ll be there whenever the need you?
Exactly.
(had the wrong McWing quote in there originally)
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KW:
It’s a protest vote, to let the establishment know they aren’t happy.
Why should the establishment care whether they are happy if, when the chips are down, they will fall into line regardless?
When you’re alternative is a repellant X candidate and a somewhat less repellant Y candidate, then the principle of not giving the worst possible person the top job supersedes the principle of voting for an unelectable candidate to send a message.
In which case, as I said, your priorities are at cross purposes. You can’t send a meaningful message by withholding a meaningless vote.
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@Scottc1: “lms:
I pay for the domain name yearly
How much do you pay? You shouldn’t be paying anything since we pay annually for the Premium Package, which is supposed to cover the domain name, I think. I renewed it just today, and after I paid it my receipt said that the Domain, usually $13/year, was $0.00, included in Premium Package.”
Ah. Did not know that . . . or is that the ability to have your own domain name, but not the actual serving of the domain (which is typically in the $10 to $15 a year range, I forget what Hover charges). Don’t know if WordPress acts as a DNS but I will look into it.
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As far as I can tell, the mapping of the domain is what is included with WordPress, not the actually domain registration, so they are two separate fees. Greedy capitalists!
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Yes, I pay the domain registration fee which isn’t that much really. I’m happy to keep it going as long as y’all are still here conversing. Sue was the one who paid the first two years then I took over. No big deal!
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KW:
As far as I can tell, the mapping of the domain is what is included with WordPress, not the actually domain registration, so they are two separate fees.
OK, just want to make sure we aren’t getting double charged. FYI, this is the exact wording on the receipt I got, with the relevant part highighted:
Domain: all-things-in-moderation.com
Domain Mapped to WordPress.com
Purchased by Kevin S. Willis
Learn More
Domain Settings
Status: Domain included in WordPress.com Premium $0.00 (normally $13.00) USD per year
This upgrade will stop functioning on January 16, 2017
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