Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P Futures | 2186.8 | 6.0 |
| Eurostoxx Index | 340.0 | 0.7 |
| Oil (WTI) | 47.0 | 1.3 |
| US dollar index | 91.1 | -0.5 |
| 10 Year Govt Bond Yield | 2.31% | |
| Current Coupon Fannie Mae TBA | 103 | |
| Current Coupon Ginnie Mae TBA | 104 | |
| 30 Year Fixed Rate Mortgage | 3.99 |
Stocks are higher this morning on no major news. Bonds and MBS are up small.
Should be an uneventful week with the Thanksgiving holiday. Markets will be closed on Thursday, and SIFMA is recommending an early close on Friday.
Donald Trump continued to interview candidates for cabinet posts over the weekend. For Secretary of the Treasury, he talked to famed investor Wilbur Ross, Blackstone head of real estate Jonathon Gray, and David McCormick of Bridgewater. The “in-depth” discussion with Gray “included the economy, global capital markets and the world financial situation as well as “future legislation regarding the tax code and long-term debt. The Ross meeting covered “negotiating the best foreign deals, American manufacturing and job creation,” as well as “engaging Ambassadors to participate in creating more economic opportunities for America,” Trump’s office said. With McCormick, Trump and Pence talked “global financial markets, currency and the American economy,” and “special emphasis was placed on restoring long-term economic growth rates on an annual basis of four to five percent.” Trump insider Steve Mnuchin and Congressman Jeb Hensarling are considered to be the front-runners, however.
Mitt Romney is under active consideration for Secretary of State.
The Chicago Fed National Activity Index improved to -.08 from a downward-revised -.23. Overall economic activity remains slightly below trend.
Traders are now pricing in a 100% chance the Fed hikes next month.
Ever since Trump won, shares in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac have been soaring. Hedge fund giant John Paulsen has a huge position in the shares and investors are betting that a Trump administration may be more shareholder-friendly than Obama was. Just as Fannie Mae was beginning to turn a profit, the Obama administration re-wrote the rules of the bailout and has taken all of Fannie’s cash flows for the government. The bailout money has now been paid back and shareholders are in litigation with the government over what to do now. Just some numbers: Market cap: 18 billion. 2015 earnings 11 billion. P/E: 1.6.
AIG is looking to boost its investment in residential mortgages. They intend to make “direct investments” into the sector, which may mean buying whole loans instead of MBS.
The CFPB is appealing a Federal Appeals Court ruling that says the agency’s structure is unconstitutional. Regardless of the outcome, the agency is probably going to have at least some changes.
Quick, what has been the best-performing IPO of the tech sector since the Great Recession? It isn’t the names you would think of like Facebook or Tesla. It is Ellie Mae, who makes software that helps automate the mortgage process. Bears are beginning to bet that a Trump administration will be more friendly to the big banks, who will get back into the mortgage business, which is bad news for Ellie Mae’s clients, who are smaller independent lenders.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Frist!
I often plug the “Media Deconstruction” podcast No Agenda, hosted by former MTV VJ and Podfather Adam Curry, and John C. Dvorak (the guy who famously said of the Macintosh mouse that “there’s no demand for these things”). It is a great show. Used to be a lot more a conspiracy theory podcast, but over the past year has transitioned more into pure media deconstruction.
The first part of the show this Sunday is a great listen if you’re looking for a deconstruction of “fake news”, and how CNN, ABC, CBS, PBS, and the BBC are engaged in the production of fake news.
Here is the link: The No Agenda Show, Episode 879
First 7 minutes is show opening stuff primarily of interest to regular listeners. To get to the fake news stuff, jump forward to about 7:12 in the podcast.
For the majority of fake news analysis, it’s about a 30 minute time commitment (after skipping for the first 7 minutes of the file).
I highly recommend, if you’ve got 30 minutes to listen to something. Although, post-election I highly recommend subscribing to the Podcast. It’s not primarily conspiracy-theory these days, although I’m sure those will creep back in. Recently, it’s just pure media deconstruction.
Always been great for distilling stuff from Al Jazeera America (no more, alas), Russia Today (a network more pro-Trump than Fox!), MSNBC, CNN, ABC, CBS, PBS, NPR, The View (!), CSPAN, BBC, etc., etc. It was a great show to listen to during Brexit and a great show post-election.
But a great overview if you’re interested in the “fake news” story going on right now.
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You mentioned this podcast a couple of weeks ago and I’ve been pretty devoted since, can’t recommend it enough.
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It’s been really good through the election and post-election has been even better. It’s always been fascinating, but years ago there was a lot more of what’s called “second half of the show”—and at one time, it was the second half of the show. Aliens, android Obama, earthquake machine, weather control, etc. I enjoyed it but more and more it’s just been media deconstruction.
One things that was really great, and I’m sorry they don’t do it anymore, was John C. Dvorak’s 3x3x3. Which was supposed to last 3 weeks and lasted more like 16. He compared the coverage of the same story on ABC, CBS, NBC (and sometimes threw in CNN). That was a great segment.
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KW
I often plug the “Media Deconstruction” podcast No Agenda
Thanks for the recommendation. I listened to it last night….very entertaining. (Cracked up over “You’ve got…Karma”.) I’ve subscribed to it so should get it regularly now. How often does it come out?
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Twice a week, Sundays and Thursdays, about 3 hours an episode. Hope you enjoy it! I just think their post-election coverage has been great.
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The news needs some sort of banner on CNN like Ted Koppel had for the Iranian hostage crisis or for Fukushima:
Progressive Meltdown – Day 13
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To be fair, it’s really Dezzie and Chris Meltdown–Day 14.
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Well, on PL. In the general media and amongst liberal pundits and commentators it varies. But I think it’s going to continue. Trump is gonna continue to do stuff progressives hate, and he and his people (but especially his people) are going to make rookie mistakes that will cause explosions of concern about competence, intent, and everything else.
Trump’s dressing down of the media will freak a large chunk of progressives out. So the meltdown will continue on that, until the next thing comes along. Which it will, soon.
Then there’s the whole helpful vibe of modern day neo-Nazis applying the alt-right label to themselves and effectively seig heiling Trump’s victory. To the degree the Trump admin doesn’t definitively repudiate it, there will be an ongoing meltdown, quite reasonably. Trump has to come out and flip out on the neo-Nazi/KKK contingent whenever they get media visibility the way he flipped out on the media, I think, or there is going to be real trouble on that front. And there really doesn’t need to be.
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KW:
Trump has to come out and flip out on the neo-Nazi/KKK contingent whenever they get media visibility the way he flipped out on the media, I think, or there is going to be real trouble on that front.
I don’t think he should flip out on them. I think he should just totally dismiss them. “The only people paying any attention to these lunatic neo-nazis is the media. It is the media, not me, who is elevating the profile and importance of these silly people. I don’t pay any attention to them, and neither should you.”
If he flips out on them any time they get visibility, the media is simply going to keep making them visible and forcing Trump to continue to disassociate himself from them, which has the perverse effect of associating them with Trump in the minds of people who are only paying half attention. (Which is the whole point of the media’s efforts to elevate the profile of these people in the first place.)
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@scottc1: “I don’t think he should flip out on them. I think he should just totally dismiss them. ”
Dismiss or ignore? I don’t think he’s going to be able to complete ignore them. Any more than you can ignore a bunch of guys that stole your wallet and are trying to use your credit cards.
Agree about the visibility concern, but I’m not sure if it’s entirely avoidable. Eh, maybe it is. I think there are ways to definitely rebuke them and the media at the same time. I mean, he could just say “These people don’t represent me, they aren’t welcome in my party, they are going to have any friends in my administration, and you in the media should seriously be ashamed for trying to associate my with these losers, and for giving them coverage. Are you trying to help these losers recruit more sadsacks? What are you people doing?”
Something like that.
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KW:
Dismiss or ignore?
Dismiss. The media is going to make it impossible to ignore them.
Something like that.
Agreed. He should disavow them while trying to shame the media at the same time.
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Yeah, I don’t believe he should ever be conciliatory to the media. That would not serve him and they never will “be fair” to him. So why should he try to make nice with the folks who made him (by accident) but also tried to destroy him? And will continue to do so?
http://www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx
They have nothing to offer him.
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Uh oh, they are starting to get a clue:
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A small clue. A large clue would lead to the headline “will almost certainly totally backfire, and by almost we mean ‘definitely'”.
The problem is, this is not a collective “left” or a collective “liberals” getting a clue, it’s a developing schism amongst liberals and Democrats as:
A. The majority (as far as I can tell) who believe the problem was that they didn’t explain to voters that they were idiot sexist bigots loud enough and demand that they obey their betters often enough . . .
is fighting with
B. The minority, who believe that insulting voters and making insane assertions about Trump and Pence, et al, in public in an attempt to “non-normalize” him is self-defeating and exactly what helped propel Trump to victory in the first place.
Don’t know if you caught Pence’s statement about how he wasn’t offended, that the Hamilton cast lecturing him was “what freedom sounds like”. I’m not convinced that Pence isn’t going to end up playing the MSM and left from the opposite side of Trump.
Would also note that when this information first appeared in my Facebook feed, it was put forth as a criticism of Pence, because he didn’t make the public statement yesterday. Thus it was Pence’s fault, and not the Hamilton cast or the ravenous media, that made it such a kerfuffle, but that Pence didn’t immediately run somewhere and announce that he wasn’t offended and boos and critiques are what freedom sounds like. Because apparently it’s the obligation now of the non-offended to go publicly announce that they weren’t offended.
Seriously, why should Pence have expected this to become such a big deal? He’s not the one who made it a big deal. He’s not the one who frickin’ complained and not the channel through which Trump found out about it. That was pretty much the people now complaining that Pence should have immediately announced that he wasn’t offended when leaving the theater, preferably calling a press conference to do so.
Eh, there’s an easy explanation. All part of the meltdown.
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“Don’t know if you caught Pence’s statement about how he wasn’t offended, that the Hamilton cast lecturing him was “what freedom sounds like”. I’m not convinced that Pence isn’t going to end up playing the MSM and left from the opposite side of Trump. ”
Yep. Good cop, bad cop.
Marc A. Thiessen has it right:
The other meme going around the progressive opinion pages these days is that not sharing the left’s policy priorities is the equivalent of “violating democratic norms”.
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@jnc4p: “is that not sharing the left’s policy priorities is the equivalent of “violating democratic norms”.”
The equivalence of this might be those on the right suggesting that not sharing conservative policy priorities is unAmerican, or globalist, or “out of touch with normal Americans”. The thing is, I don’t think the left’s take on this resonates with middle America, flyover country, independent voters, and (as part of middle America) the millions of registered Democrats who didn’t show up to vote in 2016.
I think this is the core of the Thiessen article. This is the thing too many anti-Trump and liberal activists don’t get. Or get, and don’t think is important, as they glibly refer to that part of America (again!) as “Dumbfukistan”.
You saw the link to a related story in the body that says: “[Trump thinks artists owe him respect. They don’t.]”, I assume? I think that’s another core weakness in the American liberal establishment at present. And it’s where Trump represents a serious threat to them. They don’t frickin’ get this guy at all. Trump doesn’t think artists owe him respect. He’s playing the media like a virtuoso, is what’s he’s doing, and they walk right into it. They are writing the articles Trump would want them to write, while thinking they’re engaged in speaking truth to power. The guy is like rain man. He’s just an intuitive genius (almost to the point of being an idiot savant) about this sort of thing. And I suspect his critics are way, way out of their depths. He has a single core strength and that’s where they keep attacking him. Because he tells them to. It’s amazing to watch.
I think it was Friday on Plum Line where in an article on Ryan dozens of the regulars argued that Pelosi should remain minority leader, unchallenged. That “new blood” in the form of 43 year old Ryan was the last thing they needed. And though they credit Obama for everything good that’s happened while he was president and will credit Trump, as they did Dubya, with everything bad that happens under his leadership, the fact that the Democrats have continuously suffered defeat after defeat under Pelosi isn’t held against her. Preserving the existing hegemony is more important than winning elections, apparently.
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“He’s just an intuitive genius (almost to the point of being an idiot savant) about this sort of thing.”
See also not moving his family to DC. If you want people to perceive you as an outsider, that’s how you do it.
Note also the hysterical reaction (yet again) to it.
Also, your comment about Trump being an intuitive genius about this is exactly the same view that Scott Adams and Steve Bannon have on Trump. They say it’s all natural instinct.
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“Note also the hysterical reaction (yet again) to it.”
I have. It’s the media and the left working together to affirm Trump’s narrative, under the irrational belief that all their coverage and hissy-fitting is a negative for him.
They really should keep in mind that not every single person who voted for Hillary is of their exact mind, and simply voted for her because they thought she’d do a better or job or didn’t trust Trump or whatever. This was the strategy with Dubya after he won in 2000, but lost the popular vote to Gore.
All they are doing is assuring Trump wins in 2016 and, like Bush did in 2004, gets the popular vote as well as the electoral college. The lesson they will draw from that?
America is racist and rural America is full of white nationalists and domestic terrorists.
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Worth a read:
“Not in Our Town
Can American cities stop Trump from deporting millions?
By Henry Grabar
Nov. 20 2016 8:01 PM”
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/cover_story/2016/11/how_cities_could_thwart_donald_trump_s_deportation_plan.html
The Trump administration is going to be a great example of what goes around, comes around in politics. Between the results of eliminating the filibuster on executive appointments, using the regulatory system to generate policy outcomes and now withholding federal funds if cities and states don’t comply with his immigration policies, Trump is about to give the progressive left a big (possibly fatal?) dose of it’s own medicine.
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I’m actually looking forward to testing state and/or city nullification of Federal laws. Kinda hope it sticks.
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Does it really hurt that much to get things right, Slate? Trump called Mexican’s rapists? Trump is anti-immigrant? Is it that hard to say “illegal immigrant” or at least “undocumented worker”?
Thinking about it, I don’t think the Trump administration should do anything to sanctuary cities, but provide every aid to cities that want to help deport illegal immigrants. Thus, either illegal immigrants will be deported or confined to the liberal meccas that want them. The states can penalize them, if they want, but I think it would help those cities put their money where their mouths are.
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KW:
Does it really hurt that much to get things right, Slate?
Their goal is not to get things right. It is to propagandize. And when that is your goal, then yes, it can hurt to get things right.
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Point taken. You are correct, of course.
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Garrison Keillor:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-voters–its-not-me-its-you/2016/11/21/92d7c884-b005-11e6-be1c-8cec35b1ad25_story.html?utm_term=.f4f74be24c60
WTF is wrong with these people? This isn’t some fringe White Power nutburger who has deluded himself into thinking Trump is going to Make America White again. This is the folksy, homespun creator of Lake Wobegon and Public Radio mainstay, Garrison-effing-Keilor.
People whose shoot up theaters are the same as people whose voted for Trump. The mind boggles.
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little. The self-congratulatory offal is suffocating.
Also: frickin’ globalists.
Man, folks on the left are really getting a lot of mileage out of the whole “everyone we don’t like is Hitler” thing.
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Can’t believe I missed this originally:
I half suspect the popular vote count in California is being run up to try and do some sort of Hail Mary play by influencing the electoral college to some how not vote for Trump.
Edit: This sums up progressives perfectly:
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Every time they find another couple hundred thousand votes in the couch cushions, I suspect fraud. And given that the state government is 100% D, they will get away with it because that is the outcome everybody wants.
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Trump the racist.
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Looks like Obama is going to be Jimmy Carter the second.
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/11/the-feedback-loop-for-democratic-norms/508322/
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Because Obama has been so valuable to Democratic electoral success
Republicans should be paying him to do this.
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This is a real problem for the narrative:
“The Water in Flint Is Now Better Than Bottled Water
Kevin Drum
Nov. 21, 2016 3:26 PM”
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2016/11/water-flint-now-better-bottled-water
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None of the memes on Facebook say this!
Doesn’t matter. At all. Even in Mother Jones. The same people who thought the Bush admin purposely handled Katrina and the relief effort in an attempt to kill African Americans will continue to believe the water in Flint is being purposely handled in a way to kill African Americans. Once it became a race/white privilege issue, the narrative was set for years and years to come.
That being says, I think this part points to the growing schism on the left, between liberals who actually care about facts on want to accomplish positive things, and partisan ideologues who want to protest, yell, be part of a tribe, and shake their fists and the vile other.
Kevin Drum provides his credentials as someone who has spent a lot of time reporting on lead and takes it seriously. These areas where we have real world experience or a certain level of expertise tend to be where we naturally have a greater affinity to facts and the real world. When our fellow travelers dismiss our facts and experience because they don’t fit the narrative, it creates alienation between fellow travelers. Kevin Drum may or may not question the knee jerk response, on the left, to critical issues more now, but chances are someone will because of where the narrative diverges from facts, data, and what actually is best versus what the narrative insists must be best.
As I recall, David Horowitz began (or accelerated) his journey from radical leftist to radical right winger at the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, where the liberal narrative insisted that not stigmatizing gay people and bath houses or characterizing homosexuals as being at unique risk for HIV was more important than saving lives. He had been one of the liberals arguing for getting literature out there explaining how the disease was contracted, counseling against unsafe homosexual sex, multiple partners, and anonymous sex in bath houses. All of which eventually happened. But not until tens of thousands of homosexual men (almost exclusively) died from AIDS. Something that, to this day, all good liberals blame on the tepid response from the Reagan administration, but was almost entirely the fault of leftists and homosexual activists working to maintain a narrative.
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Trump is going for real change.
“Trump has a plan for government workers. They’re not going to like it.
By Lisa Rein
November 21 at 6:00 AM”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2016/11/21/trump-republicans-plan-to-target-government-workers-benefits-and-job-security/
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ha. i take a sick joy out of watching the PL beclown itself if you get into the actual details of health policy.
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They really are self parody, aka “Fact based/reality based side”.
I didn’t bother to post this over there, but I had lunch with a friend of mine who works for NASA and is a GS15. She’s going for SES after her son goes to college.
She voted for Trump and one big reason was to get exactly these sorts of civil service reforms in place. She’s tired of having to pick up the load for the half of her department that are slackers.
She told me that they had to make a marginal hiring call on an employee who was going from a limited term to permanent work status. Rather than just do that and keep him at his current level, they decided that they had to promote him a whole GS grade, even though a majority agreed he wasn’t qualified for the work at that level, because the supervisor with the decision making authority said that if they couldn’t justify promoting him then they couldn’t justify keeping him and he was too nice a guy to just let go.
That’s the mentality.
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I suspect the Trump people will eventually had to address the alt-right people are, for all practical purposes, Neo Nazis:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/22/hail-trump-alt-right-leader-richard-spencer-leads-white-nationalist/
The whole “Hail, Trump!” thing is really creepy.
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KW:
I suspect the Trump people will eventually had to address the alt-right people are, for all practical purposes, Neo Nazis:
I thought that the two links that jnc provided a couple days ago, an article and a speech by Milo Yiannopolous, were the best and most informative explanations of the alt-right “movement” that I have read. And if those articles are correct, it doesn’t make a lot of sense to try to label the alt-right with any characterization other than alt-right itself. Certainly not neo-nazi or racist or white nationalist. The people are too varied in their thoughts and goals.
It also doesn’t seem to make sense to refer to anyone as a “leader” of the alt-right. There may be leaders of certain movements that have joined the alt-right, but I’m not sure the alt-right itself has a coherent and cohesive enough ideology to be said to have a ‘leader”.
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I don’t disagree (and not suggesting that alt-right should be labeled Neo-Nazi, but more than there are a handful of noisy Neo-Nazis trying to wrap themselves in the mantle of the alt-right or characterize themselves as alt-right, and take advantage of the broader acceptance and credibility of alt-right conservatives who aren’t subscribers to the value of white racial purity).
But whichever, the neo-Nazis (or whatever you want to call Richard Spencer and his assorted supporters busy Hitler-saluting Trump) trying to glom on to Trump are gonna have to be scraped off like barnacles. Trump isn’t a white power guy, these guys are like a tiny fraction of his base, and they aren’t going to do him any favors going forward. You can shrug it off for awhile but eventually the David Dukes who are and Richard Spencer’s who are projecting their largely unreconstructed racism (or racial realism, if you prefer) onto Trump are gonna either have to go away or be beaten off with a stick.
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Also, the “leader” appellation is just the media trying to discredit the right, generally. Alt-right is just a general name, spreading like a meme, that clearly means something different to different people. It’s not a party with a specific leader.
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Any time Trump is conceding anything to the left or the media, he’s losing.
He just needs to dismiss the whole thing and focus on his agenda.
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