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Let the mutherfuker burn!
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| Last | Change | |||
| S&P futures | 2698 | 16.25 | ||
| Eurostoxx index | 379.67 | 1.95 | ||
| Oil (WTI) | 66.26 | 0.05 | ||
| 10 Year Government Bond Yield | 2.83% | |||
| 30 Year fixed rate mortgage | 4.44% | |||
Stocks are higher this morning as China relaxes ownership restrictions on domestic manufacturers. Bonds and MBS are flat.
We have a lot of Fed-speak today, especially in the morning. Separately, Trump announced two Fed nominees: Richard Clarida of Columbia, to be the Vice Chairman of the Fed and Michelle Bowman, previously a bank executive from Kansas. For all of his criticism of the Fed while on the campaign trail, Trump has nominated pretty much middle-of-the-fairway people to the Board.
Housing starts came in at 1.32 million, better than expectations but still well below what is needed to meet demand. Building Permits came in at 1.35 million. Single family starts fell, while multi rose. Most of the increase was in the Midwest.
Industrial Production rose 0.5% last month, while manufacturing production rose 0.1%. Capacity Utilization increased to 78%. So far we aren’t seeing any tariff effects in the numbers.
Bank of America announced earnings yesterday, and lumped mortgage banking income into the miscellaneous “all other income” category. What an ignominious end to Countrywide. Bank earnings season continues.
Independent mortgage bankers saw profit per loan get cut in half last year as refis dried up and the business got more competitive. Refis fell from 36% of all origination volume to 25%.
Zillow crunched the numbers and looked at the typical homebuyer in 2017. The typical buyer is 40 years old, making 87k. Millennials make up 42% of the cohort. They typically spend about 4.3 months finding a home. Interestingly, despite the size of the investment, most homebuyers only contacted 1 lender. Here is what is important to homebuyers when thinking about a lender:
The median home was sold in 81 days, and that includes the closing process. This means the typical home was on the market for only 1 month. This is 8 days faster than 2016.
The National Low Income Housing Coalition has a new report showing how acute the housing shortage is at the low end. Only 35 affordable and available rental homes exist for every 100 extremely low income renter households. Rising home prices and mortgage rates are reducing affordability, however interest rates are still extremely low historically. In the early 80s, a the first year’s mortgage payment consisted of 99% interest, 1% principal.
The IMF forecasts that global growth will hit 3.9% this year, the fastest since 2011, driven by emerging Europe, and the US.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
The schadenfreude is strong here:
“A professor teaches about feminism and consent. Now he’s been accused of abuse.
Two women accused a University of Texas Austin professor of sexual misconduct after he wrote an essay for Vox.
By Anna North
Apr 17, 2018, 8:00am EDT ”
https://www.vox.com/2018/4/17/17215554/metoo-movement-robert-reece-ut-austin-sexual-misconduct
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jnc:
The schadenfreude is strong here:
Apparently even disavowing your masculinity and becoming a “womanist” is not enough to protect yourself from vilification. Nor, I guess, is being black, although I assume that his ex-girlfriend must also be black, otherwise his victimology as a black man would be enough to at least even the score with her victimology as a woman. Only if she is a black woman does her position strengthen relative to him. Perhaps if he stopped identifying as a “womanist” and started identifying simply as a “woman” he might be able to redeem himself and jump ahead in the intersectionality victim olympic games.
The mind whirls.
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I read the linked tweet thread. The guy does sound like a scum bag and the women sound credible. The Vox piece makes a hash of it.
The irony is that he got a position teaching about feminism and consent.
This tweet was perfect:
“But ya know, Thank God for the fuckbois posing as feminists.”
As an aside, this throwaway observation from the Vox piece is telling:
“For Walker, the fact that Reece teaches sociology — that he is in a position to teach students and the public how society works or should work — makes him especially dangerous.”
Taking sociology to be taught “how society should work” is the encapsulation of the problem with the progressive mindset.
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jnc:
The guy does sound like a scum bag and the women sound credible.
That’s just your white male privilege talking. You’re in no position to judge! 😉
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“Taking sociology to be taught “how society should work” is the encapsulation of the problem with the progressive mindset.”
you all will be shocked to know that I didn’t do so well in my intro to sociology class.
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This
“I find the Tom Homan that I see on TV now unrecognizable compared to the one that I saw in the Situation Room.”
Makes me think of this
I do not believe that the solution to our problem is simply to elect the right people. The important thing is to establish a political climate of opinion which will make it politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing. Unless it is politically profitable for the wrong people to do the right thing, the right people will not do the right thing either, or it they try, they will shortly be out of office.
Milton Friedman
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/04/ice-cold-how-a-loyal-obama-bureaucrat-became-the-face-of-trumps-deportation-force/
I wonder if MJ realizes that for a huge number of people this is a puff piece.
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I’ll be in my bunk.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/17/toomey-get-ready-feel-power-fully-functional-congressional-review-act/
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Heh
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i just assumed it was him.
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and there’s a deflated balls joke in there somewhere.
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Lots of great speculation on this:
https://www.thecut.com/2018/04/stormy-daniels-sketch-best-tweets-guesses.html
The sketch also resembles someone who is or was at one point Stormy Daniels boyfriend.
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R.I.P. Barbara Bush.
PL commentary was pretty ugly the other day in anticipation of her passing.
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really? they’re just ugly, nasty people.
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Astonishing!
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the replies are hilarious. triggered. literally shaking. can’t even.
https://twitter.com/womensmarch/status/986418934852280320
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This was an interesting read:
The irony of Barbara Bush being protested at Wellesley College because she had “gained recognition through the achievements of her husband” which wasn’t how Wellesley graduates were supposed to succeed in the world is perfect.
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jnc:
The irony of Barbara Bush being protested at Wellesley College because she had “gained recognition through the achievements of her husband” which wasn’t how Wellesley graduates were supposed to succeed in the world is perfect.
Hilarious.
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Rereading the linked contemporaneous NY Times piece along with this one does show how conservatives were more effective when they didn’t descend to the level of the protesters in response, but instead stayed in the role of the adults in the room.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/04/18/find-the-joy-the-day-barbara-bush-wowed-wellesley-even-her-feminist-protesters/
The contrast between that and the Ingraham response to the Parkland school shooting activists is night and day.
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And it’s insane. When Ronald Reagan died, conservatism didn’t die. When Barbara Bush died, all conservative women or first ladies of Republican presidents didn’t die. There’s no victory there. There’s nothing to celebrate. Nothing to be excited about. Literally nothing. There’s no benefit to them or their cause in Barbara Bush’s passing (nor was there in Ronald Reagan’s, or any other prominent conservative). These people are mentally troubled.
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This is a funny piece.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/04/minnesota-public-radio-anatomy-of-a-smear.php
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So many liberal in Minnesota! Would woulda thunk it?
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