Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Memetrics
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quarterback
ScottC
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Stocks are lower on COVID fears. Bonds and MBS are up small.
Many states are slowing or reversing re-opening plans.
The Supreme Court ruled that the CFPB is permitted to stay, but the Director can be fired at will. This was a Solomon-esqe decision that split the difference between people who wanted the entire bureau eliminated and those that wanted the bureau to to run on autopilot.
Jerome Powell and Steve Mnuchin will appear before the House Financial Services Committee this afternoon. There will probably not be anything market moving however just be aware.
Home prices rose 0.3% MOM and 4% YOY according to the Case-Shiller index. These are April numbers. The South and West were the hot spots, while the Northeast was weak.
Ginnie Mae put out a APM which deals with re-securitizing re-performing Ginnie loans. These loans are ineligible for traditional Ginnie pools and will have to go into new custom pools which will presumably trade far back of normal GII pools. In a nutshell, this will impact FHA and VA pricing for the worse.
Democrats are preparing a nationwide eviction moratorium. Meanwhile, FHFA is working on continuing forbearance for multifamily borrowers who suspend evictions. Obviously, nothing here is going to be good for investment properties, so expect pricing to soften here (or programs get pulled back).
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
Brent, what do you think of the “bounty” reports?
Assuming that we do not know 1] if there was a bounty, 2] and if there was one whether it was reported to the President, do you want to see the matter thoroughly investigated?
I remember when the Seal Team recovered the $500K from the Taliban and I have read that Senators have been getting an earful from military families about general Russian involvement with the Taliban for a couple of years [based often on recovered weapons and what Taliban prisoners have said].
And of course we helped the daddies of the current Taliban fighters against the Russians in Afg.
So I tend to think the underlying allegation of bounty is true but want to hear more from intel witnesses and military on the ground. And if true, then I want to know all the rest. And I wish Bob Kerrey and John McCain and Chuck Hagel and Bob Gates were around.
But i want your take. I think you follow this kind of news more closely than I.
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Mark, to be honest i have not followed this one at all. Let me do some reading..
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Mark,
What do you think the Russians have received from Trump since his election? In other words, how has the US/Commie Bastards relationship been more beneficial to the Commie Bastards under Trump versus under Obama?
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how has the US/Commie Bastards relationship been more beneficial to the Commie Bastards under Trump
Don’t change the subject here, George. What is your take on this Bounty business? Senate and House armed services and intel committees should investigate or not?
We can discuss the relative Russia situations of BHO and DJT, of course. But I didn’t ask about bounties in AFG for that reason and I really am curious how you think this should be approached, if at all. I already wrote what little I thought I knew about it so if you know some stuff please tell.
Put another way I am all eyes and ears on this one and not on a soapbox.
Brent, if you do form an opinion about where this should lead, please share.
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Mark:
Put another way I am all eyes and ears on this one and not on a soapbox.
The source of the story is leaks from anonymous “intelligence officials”. And the NYT authors are some of the same ones who were pushing the Russia collusion hoax for so long. Given the sordid history of such anonymous intelligence leaks over the last 4 years, especially ones involving Russia and Trump, and the undeniably partisan agenda of the NYT, why should anyone take them seriously?
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I am honestly more suspicious of the press, which I find increasingly unreliable, incompetent, uninformed, or actively spreading disinformation that I have a hard time seeing what the point of it is, beyond being PR for certain political and social views. Willing to entertain the possibility but would need more hard data.
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I have no idea what it might be, although I’ve argued for a long time I expect there are separate actors with separate agendas in Russia, so almost anything is possible if not necessarily likely. What is the benefit to Russia for such bounties?
And also it doesn’t seem they were well known or particularly effective, given the number of folks killed. As far as I know, but I’m far from well-informed on the subject.
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The question for me is, what country doesn’t have a bounty on US soldiers? Also, why are we still in Afghanistan? Investigate away, as far as I am concerned, even partisan oversight is better than no oversight at all. In the end though, if the the investigation concludes that war sucks and Orange Man Bad, what did it accomplish? Trump’s fate is sealed already so it’s kind of a “so what?” situation. I see it more driven by a desire to thwart any further Afghanistan withdrawal.
There were stories for years that Iran was paying bounties on US Soldiers in Iraq but it didn’t stop the Obama administration from sending pallets of cash to Iran, so I’m not sure that bounties are an inhibitor to diplomatic relations overall, do you?
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My take is that it could be true, but anonymous officials leaking the same story to multiple outlets isn’t conclusive. And the NY Times has publicly stated that the usual rules of objective journalism don’t apply when covering Trump. And make no mistake, this story is about Trump, not Russians in Afghanistan.
I’d like to see actual evidence as opposed to just assertions from anonymous sources. This sort of stuff doesn’t have a good track record. Remember the stories about Russian hackers supposedly trying to hack the power grid that turned out to be 100% BS?
David Ignatius had a reasonable take on it that actually references a US general on the record:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/06/29/were-trumps-aides-too-afraid-tell-him-about-russian-bounties/
The other thing I take issue with is all the people who are now claiming to be outraged about how Trump didn’t do something to “protect our troops” from an apparently newly incentivized Taliban were also up in arms when he killed Qasem Soleimani via drone strike after the attacks on US service personal and the embassy in Iraq.
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Good read:
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Not a subscriber so I can’t see it, but here is another one on Princeton:
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/29/princeton-students-beg-university-to-buck-the-mob-and-defend-free-speech/
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Get Firefox and NoScript.
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