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 | 2589 | 14 | ||
| Eurostoxx index | 368.88 | -2 | ||
| Oil (WTI) | 63.15 | 0.14 | ||
| 10 Year Government Bond Yield | 2.76% | |||
| 30 Year fixed rate mortgage | 4.41% | |||
Stocks are rebounding after yesterday’s bloodbath. Bonds and MBS are down small.
No economic data today. Neel Kashkari speaks at 9:30 this morning.
The replacement for LIBOR begins trading today, when the New York Fed begins listing its new Secured Overnight Financing Rate. The NY Fed will also publish a couple other rates: the Broad General Collateral Rate and the Tri-party General Collateral Rate. Details can be found here. The appeal of SOFR will be that it is based on arms-length transactions and not quotes from banks that may or may not be real.
Prepayment speeds collapsed in early 2018 as rates rose, according to Black Knight Financial Services. Prepayment speeds are generally a proxy for refi activity, which has dried up as more of the refi opportunities are out-of-the-money. From this point onward, refi activity will be driven by home price appreciation more than interest rates. As home prices rise, the opportunity will be cash-outs, FHA with MI to conventional without MI, and ARMS into 30 year fixed. As the yield curve flattens, the relative decrease in the monthly initial ARM payment decreases.
Home equity topped $5.4 trillion last quarter and beat the record set in 2005. 75% of that is in mortgages that are out-of-the-money, or below the current 30 year fixed rate mortgage.
Home Prices rose 1% in February and are up 6.7% YOY, according to CoreLogic. They are forecast to be flat in March and up 4.7% YOY. Much of the torrid growth has been in the West / Mountain states, especially WA, NV, ID, and UT. Affordability has fallen and home price appreciation is expected to slow going forward. About half the MSAs are now overvalued, as home price appreciation and mortgage rates have outstripped income growth.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
and they say Trump is bad for the economy:
“It’s time to think seriously about cutting off the supply of fossil fuels
A new paper makes the case for supply-side climate policy.
By David Roberts
Apr 3, 2018, 9:40am EDT”
https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/4/3/17187606/fossil-fuel-supply
Only Vox could come up with the idea of imposing an oil embargo on ourselves.
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Was it you who posted the article about the higher cost of renewables being the point? Essentially, the last thing environmentalists want is cheap, clean energy, because then people will have more money and that means more kids … and we can’t have that
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It never ceases to amaze me, these people are true believers.
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… in their own artificial delusions. Like the kids who used to argue a favorite comic book story “could really happen just like that in real life”. There is no line between their personal fictions and the limits of reality and the lessons of history.
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“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Woods Institute
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KW:
“Giving society cheap, abundant energy would be the equivalent of giving an idiot child a machine gun.” – Paul Ehrlich, Stanford Woods Institute
Giving Paul Ehrlich a platform to pontificate to the public about the future is like giving Stevie Wonder a platform to critique the works of Pablo Picasso.
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“Attempting to fill that gap, the authors argue that supply-side policies will often be more conducive to building public support.”
Meaning the public will be happier about artificial energy shortages and inflated prices, and thus will support intentionally constraining supply? That seems counter-intuitive.
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Yeah, the Arab Oil Embargos in the 1970s did great things for the economy…
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An amazing article. So many true believers that the buzzwords of policy wonkery will defeat millions of years of evolution and the laws of physics.
Tag line of their site should be: “Remaking The Entire Universe Via Our Incredible Erudition and Moral Superiority” or something. They are without humility. Make Trump look like a piker when it comes to overestimating what they can actually accomplish.
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This strikes me as significant:
“Jewish people have a right to their ‘own land,’ Saudi crown prince says as he seeks ally against Iran
by Rick Noack
April 3 at 8:46 AM”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2018/04/03/jewish-people-have-a-right-to-their-own-land-saudi-crown-prince-says-as-charm-offensive-continues/
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jnc:
This strikes me as significant:
Indeed. That is interesting.
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Was it broadcast in Arabic in Saudi Arabia? It’s interesting unless it’s a Palestinian play where they say one thing in English and another in Arabic.
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The full interview. Judge for yourself.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/04/mohammed-bin-salman-iran-israel/557036/
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Its time we had a national conversation on toxic femininity
http://abc7news.com/source-active-shooter-multiple-injuries-at-youtube-hq/3297411/
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Ask the question again in 50 years, you might get a more affirmative answer than you could possibly hope to get today.
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I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… there is no reason why the right has to respect the shibboleths of the left…
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-04-03/epa-drops-mention-of-climate-change-in-auto-emissions-reversal?cmpid=socialflow-facebook-business&utm_campaign=socialflow-organic&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social&utm_content=business
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I saw a demonstration of the effects of CO2 in the atmosphere and in fact got to participate at the UT College of GeoSciences a few weeks ago. The petroleum geologists who led the lesson have developed a carbon sequestration plan that was funded by a major oil producer. My granddaughters and I and everyone who participated came away believing that rising levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere inevitably traps heat. Yes, the two geologists had an interest in selling the concept to industry. But no, the demonstrations were transparent and sort of like HS chem lab.
You had to be there.
Next one:
http://www.esi.utexas.edu/talk/live-on-mars/
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That’s how religious revivals work! They want to get you into the big tent.
… That being said, knowing how to manage CO2 levels in the atmosphere in a noble goal. Frequently, our progress is made not in pursuing a necessary and important goal for our survival, but in believing we are. CO2 does indeed trap heat. But so does water vapor, and to a greater degree. At present, it remains my contention that we don’t know the extent to which we are impacting global temperature change but based on my experience with the fallibility and arrogance of human beings generally, it’s probably not nearly as significant as we imagine it is, in the same way it was never all that likely that we were at the center of the universe.
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https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/vapor_warming.html
My question is will this mean getting hotter and wetter rather than hotter and dryer? In other words, will Austin get like Presidio or will it get like Houston? My concern is local, not global.
George knows the difference, and since he moved from AZ to Houston he has made his choice.
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Mark:
In other words, will Austin get like Presidio or will it get like Houston?
I hereby predict that Austin will remain like Austin for quite some time to come.
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Mark, et al,
Thought you might find this amusing. My youngest daughter, a HS senior, is in an AP Government class, and tonight her homework was to fill out a March Madness Bracket for the most impactful Supreme Court decisions in US history. I don’t know how the original 64 were chosen, but the four “regions” were Bill of Rights, Political Process, Civil Rights, and Constitution. She has to fill out the entire bracket, and then defend her final four and championship picks.
Her Final Four is Gideon v Wainwright against Griswold v CT and then NYT v US against Marbury v Madison. It’s hard to see how Marbury can’t be the Champion, but the teacher did say that everyone always picks Marbury and he was hoping people would be more creative. Not sure what she is picking yet, but I thought the exercise was pretty interesting.
BTW, when I noted to her the injustice that Wickard was not among the 64 competitors, she laughed and said that one of her classmates had com0lained about the same thing. I want to meet that kid.
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She should write in Wickard in the championship and defend that as the winner against Marbury. I think she’d get extra credit for thinking outside the teacher’s box.
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I told her that too, but she thinks the other kid is already going to do that. I told her to pick Griswold and argue that, as the foundation for Roe, it has not only had far reaching effects on the law and society, but has in fact forever altered the entire nature of the Court and even the process by which it gets populated.
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I get your point, and it’s a profound one. Wickard still sits in my craw though. It’d also be worth arguing that Marbury was decided wrongly..
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If that kid has a PAC let me know.
If that kid doesn’t have s PAC … let me know
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Wickard and Kelo.
On another note, this Economist analysis is more far ranging than hand wringing, I think, although some tightness in the crotch is noted.
I am one who thinks the Iran deal, although weak on ballistic missiles and absent on exported terrorism, is better than no deal and better than a military adventure. I never understand why someone in DC always thinks wars are good to start. And I always recall my dad sending me to school with the admonition to never start a fight but to be prepared to finish one. One of those everything I know I learned in kindergarten moments.
https://www.economist.com/news/international/21739646-john-boltons-appointment-national-security-adviser-sounds-its-death-knell-deal
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Mark:
Wickard and Kelo.
Yeah, Kelo was another one that was inexplicably left out by the selection committee. You must be doing an NIT bracket!
Actually, I found out that the cases that were selected were based on the one’s deemed of import by the College Board which administers the AP tests. And my daughter’s teacher admitted that the College Board has a bit of a bias problem.
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You must be doing an NIT bracket!
Lol!
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Scott, it has been recently argued that “substantive due process” meant to the Founders that no arbitrary legislation violative of the Constitution is good law. Note this early quote from Justice Chase:
Chase offered several examples of exercises of legislative power that were sufficiently contrary to those ends that “it cannot be presumed” that people had authorized such power—such power had to be expressly given, in terms that did
not admit of doubt. Among them: “A law that punished a citizen for an innocent action, or, in other words, for an act, which, when done, was in violation of no existing law; a law that destroys, or impairs, the lawful private contracts of citizens; a law that makes a man a Judge in his own cause; or a law that takes property from A. and gives it to B.”
Kelo violates originalist substantive due process theory directly.
Also, Article 134 UCMJ, but that is sui generis.
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Mark:
…or a law that takes property from A. and gives it to B.
You know me so well!
I noted and highlighted that very line in the pdf you sent me, and have been waiting for you to post about it. It suggests that redistributive tax policies are unconstitutional under the 14th amendment and substantive due process doctrine. If there is one way to get me on board with substantive due process theory, that would be it.
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I wonder if this is Trout from PL
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I, for one, can appreciate the apathy.
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But what if you hate Trump and love guns? Those people exist. Does she not care about them, either?
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Kos kids not happy with Van Der Zwaan’s sentence.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/3/1754092/-Dutch-lawyer-Alex-van-der-Zwaan-becomes-first-person-sentenced-in-Trump-Russia-investigation
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Ace posted on this and Twitchty got involved, I’d say Twitchy was funnier.
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2018/04/03/the-plot-thickens-kyle-kashuv-might-be-the-least-of-kurt-eichenwalds-problems/
I don’t fault him for liking tentacle porn however, pretty mild stuff compared to my tastes..
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Someone posted on that with the Bobs saying “we fixed the glitch”
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