Brent Nyitray
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Let the mutherfuker burn!
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Kevin S. Willis
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yellojktVital Statistics:
| Last | Change | |
| S&P futures | 2802 | 14.1 |
| Oil (WTI) | 16.51 | 2.59 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 0.61% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.43% |
Stocks are higher this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are up.
4.4 million people filed for unemployment last week. That takes the COVID-19 tally up to 26.4 million.
Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac will now purchase loans in forbearance, provided they funded between March and May. They will incorporate a 500 basis point LLPA for first time homebuyers and 700 for everyone else. They will only buy purchase and rate / term refis, no cash outs. After 5/31 any loan in forbearance is ineligible for purchase from Fannie Mae.
Mark Calabria is getting beaten up regarding the reluctance for Fannie and Freddie to provide advance lines to servicers. Ex-MBA President Dave Stevens wrote a scathing article regarding FHFA.
The CARES Act is clear about forbearance: “If a furnisher makes an accommodation with respect to one or more payments on a credit obligation or account of a consumer, and the consumer makes the payments or is not required to make one or more payments pursuant to the accommodation, the furnisher shall (I) report the credit obligation or account as current.”
In this morning’s Federal Housing Finance Agency announcement – they are limiting otherwise saleable loans that are performing, “current” according to the law just passed, or charging exorbitant delivery fees.
This is unacceptable. These are GSE-eligible loans as they are performing/current according to the law just passed, unless they were delinquent at time of going into forbearance. The GSEs need to buy these loans and either hold them on balance sheet, or pool them in TBAs if that is an option (likely not).
Good point about the loan being current. If the law says a loan in forbearance is current, then the GSEs should treat it as such.
Meanwhile, borrowers in forbearance will get asked to repay the entire forbearance period as a lump sum, which will be pretty much impossible for anyone who had a legitimate hardship. It is looking like the CARES act forbearance will please absolutely no one.
The House looks set to pass an additional stimulus bill after Democrats agreed to table the idea of mandatory vote by mail. It has already passed the Senate.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
I’m curious…what was the most accurate covid model to correctly predict the number and pace of covid deaths assuming the draconian lockdown policies that have been implemented, before they were implemented? How accurate was it?
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I think the data is wholly insufficient. There have probably been multiple more infections AND deaths related to the virus than weree reported, judging by the lengths of obituary columns and the results of antibody tests.
But who even knows what THAT means?
And how tight is a lockdown in which food processing plants stay open without physical distancing, or masks, or hand sanitation?
Did Sweden back off the herd immunity experiment this month, or is there a comparison to be made there? Or is it too soon?
Like Kev has written more than once, competently dealing with this has been stifled by lack of data.
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How much you wanna bet when all is said and done that the Medium post that was censored ended up being the most accurate?
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I don’t imagine there is one. You’re never going to start out a pandemic with good data, and China’s data being suspect didn’t help.
Sweden’s soft lockdown exists in contrast to hard lockdowns, but overall efficacy isn’t going to be assessable for months. For one thing, the soft lockdown is supposed to allow the young and healthy and potentially asymptomatic or immune to go ahead and catch it, and thus avoid a 2nd wave. Which is not something we’re going to be able to really judge until months after the lockdown eases in other countries.
As far as I know, Sweden is still in a soft lockdown. Stuff is open but old folks need to stay at home and everybody should practice social distancing, wear masks probably, and so on. Primarily, as is my understanding, they aren’t forcing businesses to close or arresting people for going to the park.
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Thanks for the insight.
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KW:
Sweden’s soft lockdown exists in contrast to hard lockdowns, but overall efficacy isn’t going to be assessable for months.
That seems reasonable. But our policies were based on models that were making all kinds of predictions about deaths within some given time span, assuming various policy measures. Surely we can look back at a model that was predicting 200,000 deaths by mid April even with isolation measures in effect and know that such a model was bunk, can’t we?
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I think we can, but I think we should have started with some presumption of bunk. I don’t know the technical details of professional statistical modeling, but they have to be able to say that we’ve got small and highly-selective and non-representative sample set, so it’s very, very likely our model is off by 1000% in one direction or the other.
I can’t imagine that’s not baked into the modeling, although it was obviously not in the media reporting of the modeling (just as it’s not for global warming modeling).
But when anyone professional, who does this stuff for a living, is looking at the data they have to know they only have enough data to make a very preliminary and very likely wrong projection.
So everyone should have known the initial and subsequent models were probably very, very far off. If you’re only looking at fatalities among tested and obviously symptomatic people, but aren’t testing asymptomatic and immune (and you can’t know general population immunity until a large chunk of the population has been exposed, you know it, and you know who never manifest symptoms) … you can’t have a projected fatality rate that’s anything but a guess.
I suspect they have models for infection levels from previous pandemics–even then, until you can test the entire populations of representative areas, you’re really not going to have a good number for that. So: you build your model on insufficient data, you’re going to get poor projections.
Short version: Yes, we should be able to look back and know how off the models were, but everyone serious had to have known they were off when they were sharing them.
Why they didn’t emphasize that these outcomes were real risks that should be guarded against, but that we just don’t have the data to say this is a guaranteed or even likely outcome–well, I guess that wouldn’t be motivating. But it’s what we should have done.
Additional ramble: I’m concerned about our post-mortem data, too. Are enough people going to get the anti-body test? Are enough people being diagnosed with COVID-19 accurately diagnosed? We still get false positives on both tests. And there’s quality difference between versions of tests, for obvious reasons.
When the final fatality numbers are tallied, is the public going to be accurately informed of how many deaths are of the elderly, the immune-compromised, and those with other illness?
I think this is important, because that should inform how we deal with this sort of pandemic generally. Trying to protect everybody may be counter-productive, and ultimately lead to more deaths among vulnerable groups.
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Also, in terms of how long it’s going to be to assess “the models”–I’m really referring more to how long it’s going to take to assess Sweden’s soft lockdown approach fairly. There was a bit of a spike in the curve initially that may have been related to the soft lockdown, which might make it look less effective at the outset.
But come next November it may appear to be more effective, due to herd immunity. And the idea that shelter-in-place and order-food and go-to-the-grocery store actually is not all that effective, compared to more basic strategies such as limiting international and interstate travel.
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https://www.vanityfair.com/style/2020/04/how-donald-trump-almost-killed-my-husband
I find this interesting.
How Donald Trump Almost Killed My Husband
The coronavirus crisis could have been abated by a president with a modicum of competence.
If you read the article, in terms out DonaldTrump Almost Killed Her Husband–by being over-optimistic at the outset. Despite that not having changed her or her husband’s behavior in any way. And despite the fact if he had banned China travel and demanded lockdowns on February 1st, this person would have been writing an article titled “How The Racism and Authoritarian Tendencies of Donald Trump Is Killing People Now” or something.
But what I find fascinating is the cognitive dissonance on display inside the article. She repeatedly quotes something overly-optimistic or self-aggrandizing Trump said, and then relays a story of a real problem or obstacle with her husband’s health care–all of which happen at a far more local level and have more to do with New York State and New York City than anything in DC. Yet it seems like the real bureaucratic and resource problems in NYC aren’t the problem. Neither Cuomo or De Blasio’s names are mentioned once. Trump is mentioned like 14 times.
Yet all the problems she describes having are local–with the hospital (and policies set presumably from city or state Health Departments) and so on.
Just very interesting how people think. But perhaps it’s just clickbait–they know what their audience wants, and it’s not hearing about the inefficiencies and incompetence of New York government.
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KW:
Neither Cuomo or De Blasio’s names are mentioned once. Trump is mentioned like 14 times.
Trump has a truly amazing effect on people.
Speaking of which, should we expect a run on Lysol and UV lights after yesterday?
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Is it really possible to oversell OrangeManBad?
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You should do a drive by of PL this morning. .
For some reason, NoVA is still trying to challenge the conventional wisdom there.
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Sometimes you have to flog a dead horse
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it’s just .. they are so blinded by ….
i have no excuse.
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Sampling from Plumline comments: Republicans must be prevented from holding office at any level until they publicly admit that electing Donald J Trump was an unacceptable personal failure of every single Republican in the United States.
So why is Nova doing that exactly? 😉
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I don’t know about the UK but you haven’t been able to buy any kind of spray Lysol here for a month. Everything is sold out. I tried to buy some Lysol wipes on Amazon and though they are in stock and I could click the “add to cart” button, they would never go into the cart. Apparently those supplies are being reserved for those verified as first responders, hospitals, etc. So we can see them but can’t buy them.
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I still have an almost full can in my garage that I periodically use to run through the air intake with the AC system running on outside air. Once every season is enough. You can’t have my can.
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We go through a lot of Lysol. Trying to be sparing, but we disinfect knobs and light switches and door handles and such with it on a regular basis. So I keep my eye out for some every time I go shopping now.
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Speaking of which, should we expect a run on Lysol and UV lights after yesterday?
referencing
I assume. The musing aloud would have been perfect in a private Q&A with his medical staff. While I think the press has jumped way too high on this, it was irresponsible to just stream of consciousness on national TV where many persons apparently do seize upon his every word.
And I assume all of us here have had enough fundamental education to know that highly concentrated, or lengthy exposure to, UV-C light burns flesh and that injecting or breathing or ingesting a significant quantity of chlorine or rubbing alcohol or any disinfectant is insane. What % of the population is actually ready to inject Lysol? Not too many. But if they do, they probably won’t die from COVID-19 if they don’t have the disease yet.
I have a UV-C lamp in my HVAC system to kill mold. Great to know it is killing viruses, as well. Right?
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The musing aloud would have been perfect in a private Q&A with his medical staff.
This is perhaps Trump’s biggest PR problem. Things that would normally stay in private or in a regular person’s head just don’t. It clearly comes with positives, as well (he did get elected president) and he really doesn’t seem to object to how it activates the media.
it was irresponsible to just stream of consciousness on national TV where many persons apparently do seize upon his every word
Yup. Again, I’d say it’s his biggest problem. The media’s jumping too high is THEIR biggest problem. And general #NeverTrumper’s saying “Trump actively wants to kill the American people. It’s the only explanation” is . . . not helpful to their cause. Because at the end, nobody comes out seeming calmer and more rational and fact-based.
Great to know it is killing viruses
I thought this was already known. When my mom worked at St. Jude doing frog virus research (which, years later after it was almost lost, got resurrected for research into the same kind of dan/rna virus that was killing chickens! You never know when research will pay off), a lot of the lab work was done in two small side labs of her main lab, and it’s where most of the samples and cultures were kept. The ceiling had a set of timed UV lights on it that were used to sterilize the rooms before and after work was done. In part because you didn’t want cross-contamination of virus samples–or to get a cold virus mixed in with your frog viruses.
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Mark:
While I think the press has jumped way too high on this, it was irresponsible to just stream of consciousness on national TV where many persons apparently do seize upon his every word.
I wholeheartedly agree that his stream of consciousness expressions are more suitable to a different setting. But I genuinely do think that pretty much the only people who seize on his every word are the people who hate him, and whose primary goal in literally every context is to demonize him in some way, any way, possible.
I mean, when has the media not jumped too high on a Trump issue? No matter how bad what he says or does actually is, the press turns it up to 11.
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“And I assume all of us here have had enough fundamental education to know that highly concentrated, or lengthy exposure to, UV-C light burns flesh and that injecting or breathing or ingesting a significant quantity of chlorine or rubbing alcohol or any disinfectant is insane.”
This is the same country that people eat Tide pods in because they saw it on social media.
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“I have a UV-C lamp in my HVAC system to kill mold. Great to know it is killing viruses, as well. Right?”
Thank you for the idea. I think I’ll get one installed.
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Clearly the Tide Pod challenge people were ahead of the curve and simply trying to build up immunity ahead of time.
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Have you seen Chris Cuomo’s wife’s “treatment”?
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8253577/amp/Wife-CNN-host-Chris-Cuomo-mocked-saying-BATHED-Clorox-treat-coronavirus.html
Okay….
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Trump made her bathe in Clorox?
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As usual Trump tries to walk back his most ridiculous ideas.
President Donald Trump said Friday that his remarks on injecting disinfectants to treat COVID-19 were sarcasm, after doctors responded with horror and disinfectant manufacturers urged people not to ingest the poisonous substances.
“I was asking a question sarcastically to reporters just like you, just to see what would happen,” Trump said on Friday during a bill signing for the coronavirus aid package. “I was asking a sarcastic and a very sarcastic question to the reporters in the room about disinfectant on the inside. But it does kill it and it would kill it on the hands, and it would make things much better.”
From NBC news.
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I think it is more likely that Trump was being sarcatic than it is that Trump honestly believed mainlining clorox was a good idea.
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I’m pretty sure his mind works in mysterious ways but he was directing his comments and questions to Dr Birx whose body language was very telling. But either way, it’s always amusing to watch him try to deny that he said what he actually said.
Polling numbers seem to reflect that while his base is still behind him and his popularity numbers continue to hover in the mid 40’s, his handling of this crisis is reflecting confidence in him even among Republicans is not very high at all.. It’s my opinion that Trump is much more “fake” than any of the media outlets that cover these briefings. Apparently, that doesn’t seem to matter too much to his supporters though.
There is always tension between the press and any politician, depending on the persuasion of media outlets. I think we all gave up on an unbiased media decades ago. But someone has to ask these questions and he keeps providing answers that don’t make much sense to most of us.
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But he didn’t deny he said it.
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Do you think there was ever a time of unbiased media? Is so, when was it?
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lms:
It’s my opinion that Trump is much more “fake” than any of the media outlets that cover these briefings. Apparently, that doesn’t seem to matter too much to his supporters though.
It is Trump supporter’s opinion that the media outlets that cover these briefings are much more fake than he is. Apparently that doesn’t seem to matter too much to you, though.
But someone has to ask these questions…
What questions? And why does someone have to ask them?
…and he keeps providing answers that don’t make much sense to most of us.
How do you come to know what makes sense to “most of us”?
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McWing,
But he didn’t deny he said it.
No but he denied the intent of his words which isn’t much different. I’m still of the opinion that words matter and so does intent.
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So you believe he legitimately wants to inject Lysol in the body?
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McWing
Do you think there was ever a time of unbiased media? Is so, when was it?
Hmmmmm, good question. I remember as a kid debating politics with my father but watching Walter Cronkite for information. I think in some ways the big issues of my young adulthood were under reported and possibly biased.
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Especially by Cronkite.
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Scott,
It is Trump supporter’s opinion that the media outlets that cover these briefings are much more fake than he is. Apparently that doesn’t seem to matter too much to you, though.
Contrary to popular belief I don’t actually appreciate fake news myself. I watch the briefings from Trump, Newsom, occasionally Cuomo, and read most of the articles I can find that don’t seem to have too much of a bias. Difficult to find on any given day. It’s the reason I mention preferring to follow the science of this crisis since it is actually a health crisis.
I’m not much good on the economic front because most of it goes over my head so I read what Brent writes, keep my head down and hope for the best.
What questions? And why does someone have to ask them?
I’m referring to a free press. Isn’t that sort of the gold standard in the US, asking questions and expressing opinions.
And lastly, I was referring to the fact that most people who can read know that we shouldn’t ingest or inject disinfectants. His own Surgeon General had to remind people of that fact after what he said.
I don’t take him seriously but how do we actually know that someone out there won’t. It’s irresponsible to suggest such a study.
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I don’t take him seriously but how do we actually know that someone out there won’t. It’s irresponsible to suggest such a study.
C’mon. You can’t think everybody should self censor like that. The equivalent is the surgeon general coming out after Obama called Kanye West a jackass and telling everybody not to lasso him and use him as a pack mule.
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lms:
Contrary to popular belief I don’t actually appreciate fake news myself.
I think you missed my point.
I’m referring to a free press.
I don’t understand, You didn’t say that the press should be free to ask questions, which of course no one disputes. You said that “someone has to ask these questions”. Again, what questions are you talking about, and why do they have to be asked?
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It’s my opinion that Trump is much more “fake” than any of the media
I don’t feel he’s any more fake. Maybe more loud and boisterous. But even that seems less true these days. But I really mistrust the media on anything and everything. Even when it’s something they don’t bring an inherent bias to, there’s concerns of ratings and clickbait, and how it will play on Twitter, and what happens if it goes viral, and auditioning for better things, and lack of knowledge regarding the subject they are reporting, and a rush to get something out there so no time for research and fact-checking . . . then add to that a peer-influenced bias, and examples where bias is not only acceptable but applauded so why not do a little more . . . eh, it’s not for me. At least in terms of believing any of it is accurate or being “reported” in good faith.
But someone has to ask these questions and he keeps providing answers that don’t make much sense to most of us.
I think it would be better if most of these questions were asked and answered by other folks in the administration, and Trump stuck to telling everybody they were doing a great job. But neither side really wants that. For Trump, it takes attention away from him. For the media, it’s less interesting, which means lower ratings and less of a clickbait opportunity or chance to go viral.
Which is part of the problem. They clearly want to capture a stream-of-consciousness world-salad that sounds like Trump suggested people should inject Clorox into their veins. That made their day. There are hundreds if not thousands of separate articles on Google news about this now.
Which is why when DailyKos folks push that networks shouldn’t air Trump because he’s using the conferences to campaign . . . they are deluding themselves. It won’t happen. Nobody will stick to that for long–because ultimately they will have to report on the big gaffes of the day, because that’s going to be all the news. Anyone just avoiding it will see their ratings and click-rates decline.
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@scottc1: …and he keeps providing answers that don’t make much sense to most of us.
How do you come to know what makes sense to “most of us”?
I’m sure a casual survey of her friends would come up with that answer. As would mine. He can be difficult to understand and can be all over the place. His answers are rarely . . . confidence inspiring, for me.
It may be speculation but I think it’s very fair speculation. I would agree that his answers often leave specifics and clarity on the side.
But I don’t think this excuses our intellectual betters in the press from actually parsing his statements, instead of willfully making up the most absurdist potential interpretation–which is often in part or in whole a creative exercise–and then reporting it as factual news.
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Facing Dr. B. as he spoke it is more likely he was trying to make her squirm for some reason known only to him. Sarcasm seems unlikely in that scenario, just ridiculous self-absorption and love of tweaking people around him. It is hard to imagine that he himself would suck Lysol with his MickeyDs.
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It seemed absolutely obvious to me.
https://www.redstate.com/bradslager/2020/04/24/825055/
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This is just Trump talking. I feel like our intellectual betters in the media are entirely capable of interpreting that as the meandering it is, and realize he was not suggesting anyone ever inject caustic cleaners into their blood.
I don’t think it was sarcasm, I think it was lack of clarity and too much saying-what-he-was-thinking. Which is not good–but the press is being willfully stupid if they can’t translate that into English. It’s like they listened to a dyslexic kid transpose words–a kid they new was dyslexic–and then insisted whatever inverted phrase he came up with was precisely what he meant to say! Even though, rationally, they would have to know that wasn’t the case.
But it’s what gets the clicks and the likes and the comments. So there you go.
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Also, not a defense of Trump. It’s a sloppy form of expressing and just random spitballing in what should be a specific press conference with specific remarks and responses. If he wants to ask about intravenous UV treatments, he should ask about that in private. All that. A lot of the time he does not, IMO, handle these things well.
Most days he’s less than presidential. And he can be right on policy, do a little trolling on Twitter, and still be presidential–but he isn’t.
But the 4th estate leaps on every less-than-stellar error in speaking judgement and goes insane. Thus making folks like me say stuff that sounds like I’m defending Trump when I’m not, at all–I’m attacking the press. Or explaining why I can’t see them as trustworthy or operating in good faith.
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But it’s even more likely he was getting ideas muddled and said something unclear, confusing the idea of the UV treatments with disinfectants, yada yada.
I doubt he was being sarcastic at the time, he was just stream-of-consciousness spit-balling and crossing over concepts. What isn’t likely is that he was suggesting individuals take disinfectants and personally inject them. Nothing but intentional misinterpretation would suggest he was referring anything but medically-supervised possibilities, as supervised by a doctor.
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Do you believe he was serious when he said it?
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As far as I can tell, I think he was seriously spitballing, asking questions, etc. I don’t think he was suggesting people go home and inject Clorox into their veins.
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I think he was suggesting such a study might have value. Equally as ridiculous.
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lms:
I think he was suggesting such a study might have value. Equally as ridiculous.
You think it would be ridiculous to do a study to see if there is an agent that could destroy the virus in the lungs the way a disinfectant destroys it on a table top? I thought you were all about the science. I think it would be pretty fantastic.
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Eh, anything is worth looking at but unless he knows something more substantial that seems serious speculative . . . and probably best left out of a press briefing.
Although, in fairness, I think the press briefings should just be ended. All questions to be submitted to the executive office via email, and answered in writing if they aren’t obviously gotcha nonsense.
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Surfactants are used in lungs all the time. Soap is just a surfactant. Proper soap and water disinfects so you could say that your blowing disinfectant into someone’s lungs to help them breathe. Maybe a disinfectant might work in the lungs. It could be spun as Trum wants you to breath Dawn.
This isn’t hard, you have to willfully misunderstand it.
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Sort of sounds to me like he was mixing up UV treatments–what benefit that could have with viral infections, I have no idea, but it seems far fetched–and the very broad idea of “disinfecting” or cleaning inside people. Not with Clorox or household cleansers but with some medical approach–which we kind of have and have used for years: antibiotics.
Might be better expressed as antibiotics for viruses, which for obvious reasons is a huge problem and not something we’d seen any time in the near future, but still. Not the appropriate forum to be pitching ideas for a sci-fi short story.
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Of course not. No rational person thinks that about what he said. It’s all bad faith and disingenuousness.
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No rational person thinks that about what he said. It’s all bad faith and disingenuousness.
It would be like if, when Obama referred to having to stop in all 57 states, the press had gone into a week-long fit about how shocking and frightening it was that a man running for president had no idea how may states their were in America. “If he’s so wrong about such a thing, how can we possibly trust him to govern?!?”
They didn’t do that, though. Because that would be ridiculous.
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I don’t have time to answer all your individual comments and questions regarding Trump’s suggestions yesterday for unique ways to combat the virus. What I heard may be different from what you heard, or admit to hearing (sorry, but that’s what I’m seeing here). I hear lots of forgiveness and interpretations that don’t match my perception of the briefing.
I can’t argue your perceptions and you can’t really argue mine. IMO he’s been pontificating in the briefing room (mostly campaigning) while promoting somewhat crazy ideas that never really pan out. Bless his heart if he’s trying to give us hope, but I really don’t think that’s his goal.
The fact that he can’t or won’t answer some questions is telling a story to me.
***Edited to add that I was so happy this afternoon that he didn’t answer questions. He needs to fade away into the background right now.
Vote for him if you want in November, because your bottom line improved but for me, he’s just a joke and embarrassing. I think the liberals in this country will rebel but if I’m wrong, at least I live in CA…………….haha
I wish the country well, north, south, east and west. I’m looking forward, in a good way, to see how the states that are re-opening segments of the economy today, tomorrow and next week, succeed. I hope we can all learn from them.
Here in CA we’re still being cautious.
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Vote for him if you want in November, because your bottom line improved but for me, he’s just a joke and embarrassing. I think the liberals in this country will rebel but if I’m wrong, at least I live in CA…………….haha
No one here voted for him.
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Yes, I remember that, most of us voted for the Libertarian (me included) or for Hillary.
I get the impression most of you here will vote for him this November as opposed to “Sleepy Joe” but feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.
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It would be hard to vote for someone who’d impulsively cratered the economy because he got rolled.
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lms:
…as opposed to “Sleepy Joe”…
He might be due for a new nickname. Have you heard of Tara Reade?
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I’m not voting for Trump because it doesn’t matter in Tennessee. If I ever consider voting for Trump, it’s the left and the media and the Democrats that provoke that feeling in me—not anything positive or attractive about Trump or the current state of the economy.
I’m writing in Gabbard. If she was the Democratic nominee I’d likely vote for her unless she essentially became HRC in the main race. Even then I’d cut her a lot of slack.
I don’t blame Trump for the current situation as much as McWing does. Still doesn’t mean I think he’s doing a great job of handling it.
You are correct that I won’t be voting for Biden, though.
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I honestly find the Tara Reade story more damning of the media—and damning is far too timid a term for how much I think it indicts them as liars and manipulators and collective sociopaths—than of Biden.
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KW:
I honestly find the Tara Reade story more damning of the media—and damning is far too timid a term for how much I think it indicts them as liars and manipulators and collective sociopaths—than of Biden.
I very much agree. The contrast between the media’s treatment of the Blasey-Ford accusation and now the Reade accusation is so stark and transparent that if it was written into a work of fiction, it would be laughed at as an unrealistic caricature of the press. They are exactly what you say….liars and dishonest manipulators.
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He might be due for a new nickname. Have you heard of Tara Reade?
Sleazy Joe
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lms:
Vote for him if you want in November, because your bottom line improved…
I guess it’s much easier to dismiss people who disagree with you if you just assume their motives aren’t as virtuous as yours.
The fact that he can’t or won’t answer some questions…
Are these the same unidentifiable questions that have to be asked by someone?
I think the liberals in this country will rebel…
They certainly do seem less and less able to accept electoral defeats.
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I’m not going to respond to this because you’re just baiting me into a discussion on false premises. Most of you here have touted Trump as being great for the economy. You may look at other aspects of his presidency occasionally but it seems to me most of you are (or were) more than happy with the results.
I have the distinct impression from what I read here that as long as the economy is humming along you will forgive him his faults as a president. It’s not unusual to do that, I did the same with Obama. I was overall happy with his performance and forgave him on some of the things I disagreed with.
I don’t like having discussions when one party seems to think that I presume I’m better than they are because I have a different value system. We’re just different and I try to respect those differences when I can. If I’m doing a poor job of conveying that then there’s really no point in my continuing to comment here. If I’ve given you or anyone here that impression then I apologize.
Hope you all have a great weekend……………I’m going to drive by the poppy fields here that are blooming, sew masks, soak in the jacuzzi and work in my garden.
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I’m not touting Trump—so many things about him are bad, and he’s representative of a deep problem with the current system—the cream doesn’t rise to the top. So to speak. Becoming president is such an awful job I can’t imagine someone qualified would ever want to do it.
That said, Trump is better than I thought he would be policy-wise, and the media makes me feel far better disposed to him than I otherwise might. A lot of stuff here may sound kind of pro-Trump but I really think it tends more to be a critique of the media.
The list of problems I have with his presidency would shorter than I had with a Obama’s, I think, though I liked Obama. Far shorter than the list of problems I have with Dubya.
I do not credit presidents for the performance of the economy, other than noting when they avoid inhibiting it unnecessarily, which I think Trump has largely done until now, but I feel that is a very low bar.
Trump is terrible, IMO, at answering honest questions or doing press conferences, though I think that same problem makes him pretty good at dealing with gotcha questions and questions not made in good faith—which sometimes seems to be a lot of them. Though all that is more about political and partisan wrestling than informing citizens, the media is at least as guilty as Trump that that’s the situation.
Tennessee is going go for Trump. If it’s convenient to write in Gabbard I probably will—or Ned Stark. If not I’ll vote for literally any 3rd party on the ticket. Unless I know the down ticket races, I’ll typically vote against incumbents.
But if the Dems has been both moderate and/or non-machine enough to nominate Gabbard or any of the early-ejected Democrats who talked about working with Republicans and not jumping on Medicare-for-All, I would have voted for them.
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lms:
I’m not going to respond to this because you’re just baiting me into a discussion on false premises.
That’s funny. You assume that I vote simply based on my “bottom line”, but I’m baiting you?!?
BTW….what false premises are you talking about?
I don’t like having discussions when one party seems to think that I presume I’m better than they are because I have a different value system.
What I think has nothing to do with you having a “different value system”, and everything to do with you saying things like “Vote for him if you want in November, because your bottom line improved…” and “I think this space is not really committed to the science as opposed to the economics…”
We’re just different and I try to respect those differences when I can.
Some advice…assuming that people who disagree with you politically do so out of concern for their “bottom line” or because they don’t care about “the science” is not an indication of respect for those differences.
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I’m so old I remember that believing “if you’re not siding with me, your siding with the terrorist” was considered bad.
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“IF you’re not with us, you’re against us.” I have ongoing objections to Dubya–more than Obama at this point in my life, as the personal impact of NCLB continues to grate at me–but I always liked his cowboy attitude. I found nothing wrong with that. Also these days I find I miss his malapropisms. Compared to Trump and Biden, they were charming.
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what false premises are you talking about
I think assumptions about false premises often result in natural limits to information exchange. When someone diverges from us significantly in opinion or understanding, it is sometimes hard to see where they are coming from or the basis for that as a false premise–or assess those premises accurate, in reverse.
Also, I think being concerned with the personal bottom line is not an inherently negative thing, and it’s something most people should be–and I think most people are, though they make express that concern differently or come from a place where certain abstract ideas influence their assessment of their bottom line. Obviously, if climate change really did ruin the planet, it would have a very negative impact on the bottom line, for example. Or if we had a president that really did want to kill Americans, that would have a negative impact on the bottom line. We all make personal bottom line assessments. I don’t think it’s a unreasonable or immoral basis to make an assessment.
Mostly, I like facts. What the media calls science often isn’t really factual–or at least, highly abstracted without context, so the science being presented paints a largely non-factual picture. Models presented without a clear sense of their inherent flaws are not science, where as the models themselves are indeed scientific–but their presentation far from.
Media science reporting is never science. And many experts will say that–though specifically about reports in their fields of expertise, while assuming the media is largely correct elsewhere!
I also like acknowledgement of ignorance. Everyone–including scientists–operate at some level of ignorance, and some level of not-knowing-what-they-don’t-know. I am 100% about the science–when it is, in fact, science. Just applying the label to it doesn’t make it science, and sometimes science robbed of context becomes just another tool of narrative-shaping.
Without peer-reviewed studies which can withstand outside criticism, science is just highly informed speculation–not Truth with a capital T handed down from on-high.
And context! Obviously, confining everybody to their houses for a duration can prevent the spread of any contagion during that time period. But that doesn’t speak to health risks that approach imposes, be they from financial problems or emotional problems or incentives that keep people from getting necessary healthcare. And these are things we don’t have absolute knowledge about, and there is likely stuff we don’t know and stuff we don’t know we don’t know.
That being said, I’m always going to assume the best intentions of everybody here. Communication is hard enough without assuming best intentions! Even when they seem to be implying I don’t have the best of intentions, I’m going to assume the best intentions. Which I do in every interaction that doesn’t involve me parting with money. 😉
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KW:
I think assumptions about false premises often result in natural limits to information exchange. When someone diverges from us significantly in opinion or understanding, it is sometimes hard to see where they are coming from or the basis for that as a false premise–or assess those premises accurate, in reverse.
I genuinely don’t understand what you are saying here. But it is certainly true that we all say things that are based on unstated premises, and I am perfectly willing to consider that sometimes a premise I hold might indeed be false. But in order to consider it, I need to know what premise is it that might be false. Hence my question.
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I’m not sure I am either. Shorter: I think sometimes the difference in knowledge and perspective leads folks to think we’re working from a false premise when in fact we’re not clear on the other’s premises. And vice versa.
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Honestly, you guys are just too intellectual for me, and that’s not a slam or a negative. I really just can’t compete……….I kind of swing from the hip, say what I want and then just hope for the best. Anywhoo, it’s still an interesting site but I’m out!
I’ll continue to learn what I can from Brent’s morning reports even though most of them don’t really pertain to us.
Hope you all survive COVID-19 and continue to make money and stay healthy………I’ll be back in September to pay the bill for the domain.
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Dammit! I knew I was being to intellectual. I just can’t help it! 😂
Seriously—I get! But hope you drop in to update us on how things are going for you at least!! Like at least weekly or something. I mean, come on. 🙃
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