Vital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 3088 | -6.25 |
| Oil (WTI) | 57.59 | 0.44 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.83% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 4.00% |
Stocks are lower this morning on weak overseas economic data. Bonds and MBS are up.
Initial Jobless Claims rose to 225k last week. We are still at extremely low levels historically. Jerome Powell will be testifying today at 10:00 am. Nothing earth-shattering came out of his testimony yesterday, although he pushed back on Trump’s suggestion that the Fed should cut rates below zero.
Inflation at the wholesale level came in a little hotter than expected, with the Producer Price Index rising 0.4%% MOM and 1.1% YOY. Ex-food and energy, it rose 0.3% MOM and 1.6% YOY. These readings are still well below what the Fed would like to see, which is inflation at 2%.
Mark Calabria said that Fannie and Fred could be ready to exit government conservatorship by 2022. “If all goes well, 2021, 2022 we will see very large public offerings from these companies,” Calabria said at an event sponsored by the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators and the Conference of State Bank Supervisors. “The consent decree will be able to give that window where they can go to market, do an offering and still operate under a way where we’ve got some prudential safeguards.” Fannie and Fred stock fell on the news. Fannie’s stock has been a trader’s dream, with plenty of volatility to play with.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Nothing earth-shattering came out of his testimony yesterday, although he pushed back on Trump’s suggestion that the Fed should cut rates below zero.
I’m no expert, but that seems like that would be an awful idea.
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Fed is doing nothing until after the election…
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But do you think they’d ever cut rates below zero?
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I don’t see what that accomplishes honestly. I think being 25 basis points above 0 is super important to the financial markets so they wouldn’t break that lightly. If they didn’t do it in 2009…
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Jeeze, Plumline (admittedly, this is old, but the thing about Trump targeting legal immigrants intrigued me).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/08/07/trump-and-stephen-miller-are-now-targeting-legal-immigrants-and-it-will-get-uglier/
The “targeting” of legal immigrants is actually not targeting legal immigrants at all: it’s raising the bar for becoming a legal immigrant, based on whether or not they or someone in their household has used any government support program right-wingers don’t like anyway.
There’s an argument to be made this is a bad idea, but it’s not targeting legal immigrants. If you aren’t open borders, and allow immigration based on a variety of criteria, then making it harder is to immigrate is different than “targeting legal immigrants”.
unleashed ICE to pursue people for deportation who have been living lawfully in the U.S. for decades, and of course enacted the horrific family separation policy at the border, with the explicit intent of deterring people from trying to come to America lest their children be ripped from their arms
If the immigrant is here illegally, how have they been living lawfully in the U.S. for decades? Technically, by definition, they’ve been living unlawfully in the U.S. for decades.
Also, hasn’t it been established for some time that Obama the administration (and a federal judge, if I recall) are responsible for that policy, and not the Trump administration? Maybe WaPo didn’t know that in 08/07/2018.
There’s little doubt that these initiatives are born of the sincere contempt that President Trump, Stephen Miller, and others in the administration have for immigrants, particularly non-white ones.
Christ, these people.
Another benefit is that it can easily play into the misconceptions and prejudices Americans already hold.
Stupid Americans.
The strategy is clear: portray legal immigrants as a drain on the system, taking advantage of hard-working people like you.
I’m not sure how this would be an inaccurate portrayal of people who immigrate here from elsewhere and immediately start using social welfare programs.
“These less rabid Republicans have jobs, homes, and security. They are more likely to resent the idea — inaccurate as it is — that their tax dollars are paying to support immigrants.”
How is this inaccurate?
In fact, as a recent Cato Institute study found, “immigrants are less likely to consume welfare benefits and, when they do, they generally consume a lower dollar value of benefits than native-born Americans.”
Less than native-born Americans, however, is not zero. So tax dollars are paying to support immigrants, just not as much as native-born Americans. So the correct approach would be to find a way to pay less to support native-born Americans, right? Not find ways to import more immigrants to access to government benefits?
There is so much wrong with this paragraph.
They literally say that making health insurance “tax deductible” (re: a pre-tax cost item) is the largest tax expenditure on the books. That’s not an expenditure. That’s like me saying my biggest personal expense is the fact my job doesn’t pay me an extra $100k a year like I think they should. Everybody’s biggest expense is all the money they haven’t won in the lottery, by that logic.
All of which sets up an interesting test. The question will be whether the less-Trumpist GOP voters, having already been alienated by this particular administration’s cruel and wretched immigration policies — particularly the family separations landing untold numbers of children in cages,
Maybe this was before it became clear with was an Obama-era program? Or they just assumed that was only on right wing talk-radio so they can keep asserting it with impunity?
In the spring, Miller said in an interview that he wants the “big fight” this summer to pit Trump’s immigration agenda, which he described as pro-American-worker, against the Democrats’ embrace of “open borders.” (Both of those are lies, but never mind that for now.)
Really? Democrats aren’t embracing “open borders”? In what way have any of them said immigration should be restricted? What do they think should be done with migrants and asylum seekers? Illegal immigrants? In what way is calling Democrats “open borders” now a lie? Trump being pro-American worker or not could be litigated, I suppose, but I don’t feel there’s a good argument for suggesting that saying Democrats are pro “open borders” is a lie.
I just need to stay away from WaPo.
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I laughed.
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That’s funny.
This “Jeffrey Epstein Didn’t Kill Himself” business is definitely being used by fascist to recruit anti-system people. We’re going to need some thought on how to combat this.
How is that recruitment? And, really? “Anti-system”? I didn’t realize the progressive left had gone all pro-system!
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“fascist” AND “anti-system” people?
I guess that makes sense to Jeet Heer, but….
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Don’t think Jeet would find much fault with this: Everything Within the State, Nothing Against the State, Nothing Outside the State.
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As long as Jeet is in charge? sure.
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Jeet Heer sounds like the Colonel Flagg of the culture war…
Flagg: Let me tell you something. I have a complete record on you. I know every move you make, everything there is to know about you, so watch your step, Hunnicut!
Hawkeye: I’m Pierce!
Flagg: Fine. You want to call yourself Pierce, I can play that game too.
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KosKidz not happy with media’s analysis of yesterday’s impeachment hearings.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2019/11/14/1899345/-Hearing-to-determine-nation-s-future-was-too-serious-media-whines#comments
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looks like only about 13 million people watched… not the numbers they were hoping for.
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I’m gonna be honest: that’s about 10 million more people than I would have guessed.
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I’m fascinated that the Democrats (or progressives) thought it would be better. I don’t see how you get there to think that.
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The bubble. They think everybody is as fascinated and obsessed with politics as they are and believe the president is the center of the universe and that at least 50% of the country completely agree with them and spend all day doing almost nothing but hating Trump. And their social media confirms that they must be right about this.
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Well, even the Kavanaugh hearings, which were lauded for such high viewership, something like 23 million, represents about 6% of the population, hardly earth shattering.
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Eh. Kavanaugh featured sex. And it seemed plausible they could prevent Kavanaugh from getting in, which gave both sides some tension to tune into. I’m not seeing that for the impeachment hearing.
Plus, no sex. If they were bringing in Stormy Daniels, rates would shoot up.
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If Schiff were smart he’d have a couple of bikini clad broads who come out to announce a break.
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If you have to write op-eds like this, you have a problem:
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the melodrama from the left is really getting old.
this is not Berlin 1933, no matter how much you insist that it is.
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This came out a while back but it’s an interesting read on the Democratic primary:
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when did busing end? early 70s, right?
of course nobody under 40 knows what she is talking about.
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I think it’s more like later ’70’s, like 76-77 time frame.
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Yeah, I remember it vaguely from my childhood, so it would have been in the 76-77 era.
Huge waste of gasoline, busing. That would never fly now. Climate change and whatnot.
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I can claim to be resident expert on busing. I won two trials and an appeal that were intended to minimize the effect of busing in Austin, along with co-counsel, in both cases.
Both cases were tried in late 1971 and decided in 1972.
In that year the feds attempted to impose a massive busing order and a massive public housing project in then segregated east Austin, at the same time.
In the school case, I argued that 1] busing was an equitable and not a legal remedy, so that 2] it had to be imposed in such a way as to do the least disruption. Therefore the one third of the schools in Austin that were already integrated by geography could NOT be bused. And in the housing case I argued that further public housing in east Austin would cause more busing. From then on public housing in Austin was dispersed throughout the city.
In the housing case, the Austin Housing Authority, aligned with the Feds, argued that land was cheaper in east Austin. Two developers told the judge in chambers during a settlement discussion that they would sell land in west Austin at the same price because it would solve the domestic worker transportation crisis, which gave everybody but the Housing Authority and the Justice Dept lawyer a good laugh. Austin has never had decent east-west driving routes, never mind public transportation.
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@markinaustin:
In the school case, I argued that 1] busing was an equitable and not a legal remedy, so that 2] it had to be imposed in such a way as to do the least disruption. Therefore the one third of the schools in Austin that were already integrated by geography could NOT be bused. And in the housing case I argued that further public housing in east Austin would cause more busing. From then on public housing in Austin was dispersed throughout the city
That’s awesome. In every sense of the word. You is bad ass.
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You really need to write an autobiography Mark.
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@markinaustin, @jnc4p:
You really need to write an autobiography Mark.
^^^^
This!
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It was a stupid place to go. That it accomplished nothing doesn’t surprise me at all, and she should have never gone to race with Joe Biden–or frankly any of the candidates, unless there were pictures of one of them in blackface.
That should have been saved for Trump. Just the fact she did it would have given Trump a great retort when she called him a racist: “Look, she called Joe Biden racist. She calls everybody a racist!”
Then something about how she’s called Barack Obama’s best friend a racist, that’s just crazy.
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Lol
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That Fox News topped the ratings for Impeachment is bad news for D’s.
https://www.mediaite.com/tv/13-1-million-watched-first-impeachment-hearings-with-fox-news-most-viewed-and-cnn-second-in-demo/
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Fox beats CNN in everything, though. So that should surprise nobody.
And easy explained. Republicans and right-wingers are fossils who only know how to watch the TV box and probably just can’t even figure out how to change the channel, while Democrats and liberals are smart and modern and just stream it all from C-SPAN on their phones or watch YouTube recaps or something. Because smart and modern!
Fox beat the networks and CNN, and beat CNN by a million viewers, basically.
“But the polls!”
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so true these days… CNN is just awful
https://babylonbee.com/news/airport-revenues-soar-after-allowing-travelers-to-pay-to-turn-off-cnn
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Last time I flew (and, admittedly, it’s been a while) it was CNN International, which was better than regular CNN. But frankly, in this day in age, who wants to see stuff not related to their flight on TVs in the airport? Everybody has a video streaming device in their pocket, and would rather be browsing the web or watching videos on YouTube or something.
Same thing could be said about Fox. I frequently see the news on (airport, restaurant, doctor’s office) when I don’t really want to be forced to watch the news.
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Watching CNN’s HLN channel in the morning, especially Robin Meade is fascinating as that show is relatively nonpartisan. It
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@markinaustin — You ever watch this guy?
You could do a retired lawyer version of this kind of stuff. I’ve really enjoyed his videos, and, boy, I think Hollywood writers could benefit from watching all his “movies and tv” gets lawyered videos.
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THANKS! That was excellent. One of the worst cross-exams in a famous movie occurs in To Kill a Mockingbird.
I am going to see if this guy has critiqued that movie.
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I haven’t seen it, but I will totally watch it if he’s made one (or he makes one).
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