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 | 2871 | -14.5 |
| Oil (WTI) | 54.49 | -0.44 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.69% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.85% |
Stocks are lower this morning after the Argentinian markets blew up overnight and the Hong Kong airport remains occupied by protesters. Bonds and MBS reversed their rally and are down after the Trump Administration announced they would delay the tariff increases on Chinese goods until mid-December. They were scheduled to take effect September 1.
The German Bund yield has hit a record low at negative 61 basis points. While the 10 year bond yield is still some 30 basis points from a record, the 30 year bond is getting close at a yield of 2.13%. Note that with the 10 year yield of 1.63% is lower than the dividend yield of the S&P 500.
Some economic data this morning: the consumer price index rose 0.2% MOM / 1.8% YOY, which was a touch higher than the Street forecast. Ex-food and energy, it rose 0.3% / 2.2%. The CPI remains pretty much where the Fed wants it, and is not going to be the driver of Fed policy, at least in the near term. Like it or not, the Fed is watching the markets and following them even if the signal-to-noise ratio is heavily distorted.
Small Business Optimism continued to increase as the index improved in July. Despite all of the handwringing in the business press over growth small business continues to grow and invest. Biggest headwind? Labor. The top concern of business was finding quality labor at 26%, which is a record. 57% reported capital expenditures, which means they have enough confidence to invest in infrastructure to grow their businesses. Only 3% of businesses reported not having their credit needs met, which is close to historical lows and kind of begs the question of what the Fed hopes to accomplish with lowering rates.
Mortgage delinquency rates continued to fall, hitting 20 year lows for most of the country. 30 day DQs fell to 3.6% and the foreclosure rate fell to 0.4%. The only areas with elevated DQ rates are in the Midwest and Southeast and are the result of flooding.
Fitch is out saying that GSE reform will probably not result in near-term downgrades.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Are the protesters in HK unaware that Trump has turned the US into a Fascist State?
https://hotair.com/archives/john-s-2/2019/08/13/hong-kong-protesters-waving-american-flags-symbol-freedom/
LikeLiked by 1 person
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/national/climate-environment/climate-change-america/?wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
LikeLike
“These winters do not exist anymore,”
These winters do not exist right now. They probably will again, though not likely in our lifetimes.
but it is one of the fastest-warming states in the nation
Then, to some very significant extent, that’s not global climate change being measured (or at least not completely), but like the urban heat sink as well. May involve other local environment factors.
The potential consequences are daunting. The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that if Earth heats up by an average of 2 degrees Celsius, virtually all the world’s coral reefs will die; retreating ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica could unleash massive sea level rise; and summertime Arctic sea ice, a shield against further warming, would begin to disappear.
“Warns” should actually be “speculates”. One of the thing that irritates me about climate forecasting is the language of certainty where it does not belong.
Today, more than 1 in 10 Americans — 34 million people — are living in rapidly heating regions, including New York City and Los Angeles.
Which makes them urban heat sinks, in addition to and probably more significantly than areas of “extra climate change”.
In any one geographic location, 2 degrees Celsius may not represent global cataclysmic change, but it can threaten ecosystems, change landscapes and upend livelihoods and cultures.
If we were presently coming out of an ice age, the papers would be filled with warning of the destruction that will happen to us once the world is less than half-covered by glaciers!
The nation’s hot spots will get worse, absent a global plan to slash emissions of the greenhouse gases fueling climate change.
An assertion which lacks hard evidence. The hot spots might and probably will get worse, at least for a time, no matter what we do about greenhouse gases.
And U.S. Geological Survey data shows that ice breaks up in New England lakes nine to 16 days earlier than in the 19th century.
The end is nigh!
The whole story reads as the the arc of global warming is going to keep going in the same direction forever, and as if the climate has not swung dramatically over geologic time. I still say: macroseasons. This is macrosummer. Might be for the next several decades. I suspect there are cycles-within-cycles-within-cycles. At some points, the earth is very warm–sort of like the opposite of an ice age. Sometimes it is very cold. Most of the time it is vacillating, over decades and centuries, between warmish and coldish.
LikeLike
Mark, what’s your opinion on the article you linked?
LikeLike
I think the article states observed facts.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel the article uses some facts in the service of a narrative. And makes what I’d call non-factual use of adjectives to create a sense of decay and impending doom, and has an orientation that all change is negative and to be feared and everything that occurs with such change is all negative and no positive—while at the very least milder winters are a positive. At the end of the day, I’m all for actually limiting carbon emissions (and all sorts of other crap, especially in India, China and Russia) … but I don’t expect any kind of cuts were going to do now are going to make a significant difference.
I also feel there was a lot of conflation in the article—beach erosion is not necessarily due to global warming, nor is it a sign of oceans rising.
I kinda sense more than factual reportage in that particular article. But to each their own. Live and live, says I!
LikeLike
Here is the problem I always have with the “Science!” crowd: The fact that temperatures have risen is pretty easy to establish. But because we have probably measured historical temperatures accurately does not mean that the models which predict the future are going to be just as accurate.
The assumptions regarding population growth and energy consumption patterns (along with technology) will almost invariably be wrong.
The idea that there are only two items on the menu: either (a) assert that temps haven’t risen, or (b) uncritically accept the predictions of the models and all the policy prescriptions of the left is complete utter horseshit (or as obama would have said a false choice).
The thing that annoys me the most is the legion of bubblehead journalists who probably couldn’t pass high school algebra calling any skeptics of the models blockheaded science deniers. As if we could run everything on solar if we only prevented Exxon Mobil from lobbying.
LikeLike
The other thing to consider is that the smoothing of historic temperature data results in lower historic temperatures.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/06/bombshell-study-temperature-adjustments-account-for-nearly-all-of-the-warming-in-government-climate-data/
The climate has been warming as we recede from the last ice age. Does that mean that humans have caused any possible recent warming? Meh, I’ll believe it’s a climate emergency when the people telling me it’s a climate emergency start acting like it’s a climate emergency.
LikeLike
The idea that there are only two items on the menu: either (a) assert that temps haven’t risen, or (b) uncritically accept the predictions of the models and all the policy prescriptions of the left is complete utter horseshit
This…definitely this.
LikeLike
I would be the first to agree that 1] rising temps are not bad for everyone, 2] the population trends and tech changes and their results will not be properly predicted, and 3] the insurance industry will have everyone moving inland or some states, like Texas especially, will take care of their beaches, etc.
But I do believe that rising CO2 and methane strongly contribute to warming, that the current effects of warming include a minor but substantial part of the world migrant problem, that stripping the Amazon Basin of trees is a very bad idea, and that sea levels rising is related to warming.
Getting China and India off coal would be a good idea, and otherwise everything everyone else does is pissing in the wind[mills].
LikeLike
mark:
But I do believe…that the current effects of warming include a minor but substantial part of the world migrant problem
Why do you believe this?
LikeLike
Reports of unsustainable farming in various regions where farming was previously the norm, due to heat/no rain, etc., in last 20 years.
LikeLike
Mark:
Reports of unsustainable farming in various regions where farming was previously the norm, due to heat/no rain, etc., in last 20 years.
I’d be interested in reading such reports. Is there any indication that the occurrence of such instances is particularly odd relative to historic norms?
I’d also be interested in the political situation in these countries where it is suddenly difficult to farm. I wonder what kind of correlation there might be between unstable/oppressive political environments and the need to migrate because it’s difficult to farm now.
LikeLike