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 | 4,185 | 6.8 |
| Oil (WTI) | 62.44 | 0.57 |
| 10 year government bond yield | 1.58% | |
| 30 year fixed rate mortgage | 3.14% |
Stocks are higher this morning as earnings continue to come in. Bonds and MBS are flat.
Home prices rose 0.9% MOM and 12.2% YOY in February, according to the FHFA. “Annual house price growth achieved a new record high in February” said Dr. Lynn Fisher, FHFA’s Deputy Director of the Division of Research and Statistics. “The 12.2 percent gain represents an increase of $35,000 for a median-priced home that sold a year ago at $290,000 in the Enterprises’ data.” Every geographic division reported double-digit annual gains.
The number of loans in forbearance ticked down to 4.49%, according to the MBA. “After two weeks of large declines, the share of loans in forbearance decreased for the eighth straight week,” said MBA Chief Economist Mike Fratantoni. “New forbearance requests increased, and the rate of exits declined. More than 40 percent of borrowers in forbearance extensions have now exceeded the 12-month mark.”
The Biden Administration is aware of the disruptions caused by the 7% cap on investment and second homes. The Administration has not yet formed an opinion on this, but it is at least aware. Bharat Ramamurti, the Deputy Director of the National Economic Council told the MBA: “We’re looking forward to working across the Administration with Congress to grapple with those issues,” Ramamurti said. “And we recognize that the issues you raised with second homes is a shorter-term issue, and all I can say on that is we are aware of it; we will continue to engage on it; and we are happy to work with you and your members on it going forward, and having a conversation with FHFA about it…we appreciate you flagging it for us and we recognize that.” Not a lot to hang your hat on here, and it certainly doesn’t seem to be any sort of front-burner issue.
The market for homes this Spring is the most competitive in years, with the National Association of Realtors announcing an average of 4.8 bids per property. Buyers are reacting by increasing the number of cash offers on a property, and are making larger down payments.
The April FOMC meeting starts today amid concerns that the economy is overheating. A survey of economists reveals the market anticipates no changes to policy this year. IMO, that is probably the case.
Concerns about an overheating economy are overblown IMO, although the inflation data will be giving off some wonky readings as COVID lockdowns last year distort the historical data. COVID-19 also created all sorts of supply chain issues that created shortages. While those price increases are real, they are also temporary. As they say in the commodity markets (which is the driver here) the cure for high prices is high prices. This means that prices increase, commodity producers like miners, farmers, and loggers increase production to take advantage of it, which increases supply and causes prices to fall.
Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |
All Things in Moderation 
As usual Carville gets it half right:
“Wokeness is a problem and we all know it”
James Carville on the state of Democratic politics.
By Sean Illing@seanillingsean.illing@vox.com Apr 27, 2021, 8:30am EDT
https://www.vox.com/22338417/james-carville-democratic-party-biden-100-days
There is problem with this advice though:
I think the lasting impact of the US Capitol riot (not “insurrection”) is much less on everyone else but progressive Democrats than he thinks it is for two reasons:
1. Most people view it in the context of almost full year of protests and riots where Democrats and their fellow travelers did nothing but make excuses for the rioters. This was the one of the few Trump supporter protests/riots in comparison. And there’s no comparison to the CHOP/CHAZ police free zones in Seattle and Minneapolis. Once you block the lawful authorities from entering and declare the territory you are occupying as independent, that sounds like an insurrection to me.
2. I personally find Congress a lot less sympathetic than the small business owners being vandalized and fire bombed. In fact, it might actually be salutary for them to find themselves on the receiving end of a riot to understand how it feels to live now in large parts of the country.
3. The only person who has been consist on condemning riots has been Senator Tom Cotton, whose NYT op-ed got their editorial page staff fired for making NYT staffers feel unsafe due to his advocacy for calling out the National Guard. Which Democrats then promptly did during the Capitol Hill riot when they were the targets and Trump supporters were the protesters/rioters. And their subsequent actions have violated civil liberties of American citizens way more than anything Trump ever did.
“Tom Cotton: Send In the Troops
The nation must restore order. The military stands ready.
June 3, 2020”
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Here is the left’s problem. They can bang the drum all they want on the cable TV shows, etc, but Republicans are not watching. So it is all in a vacuum.
And the Republicans are watching Tim Pool, Ben Shapiro and Clay Travis.
It took a pandemic, a completely inept polarizing president who purposefully crashed the economy, and 40k votes to win. Democrats are not in the shape they fantasize that they are.
No COVID, Trump wins
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Pool, Shapiro somewhat, but a lot of the “not progressive left” media critics provide coverage of what’s showing up on CNN, MSNBC, WaPo, NYT, etc. I know CNN does some brief clipping of Tucker Carlson but I feel like there’s generally more awareness of what’s going on on the left amongst the right than vice-versa.
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I feel like there’s generally more awareness of what’s going on on the left amongst the right than vice-versa.
That has always been the case. Also the right understands the left’s arguments better than the left understands the right’s.
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“No COVID, Trump wins”
I wonder if Twitter had cut Trump off in June if he would have won.
“And the Republicans are watching Tim Pool, Ben Shapiro and Clay Travis.”
and then there’s me with Glenn Greenwald, Matt Taibbi, & Shant Mesrobian. All recovering liberals who are actually honest.
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Speaking of which, time to subscribe:
“Why Power Is Getting Woke
The point of politicizing everything is to make you forget what real politics is.
Shant Mesrobian”
https://www.inquiremore.com/p/why-power-is-getting-woke
From the Substack About:
Yep, these are my people.
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And it’s important to note Greenwald is still liberal on certain things, and Matt Taibbi is still mostly liberal in terms of policy. He’s just not with the left on their approach to news and reporting and still thinks you should speak truth to power, no matter who is in power when you do it. IMO.
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It’s more basic than that.
Greenwald and Taibbi aren’t liars (even if they are occasionally wrong).
The MSM is. It’s intentional deceit.
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Carville:
People always say to me, “Why don’t Democrats just lie like Republicans?” Because if they did, our voters wouldn’t stand for it.
Staggering lack of self awareness.
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Yes. On second thought, maybe 1/4 right.
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I find this an indicator as to how deeply any person has drank the Kool-aid of their primary identity group.
If you believe that agreeing with you on political issues or being a member of the same political party insulates someone from lying, from criminality, from being a bad human being . . . you have drunk the Kool-aid. All politicians can lie. Most of them do. Many are just wrong, or have an incomplete understanding of the issues, or misunderstood some information communicated to them.
But they all work to shape a narrative. They leave things out, over-emphasize some things, and then just outright lie. Party doesn’t insulate them from this–and their devoted partisans are going to eagerly believe such lies as that confirm their priors.
I personally suspect Carville is lying there. I feel like he’s too experienced and too smart to think that any group of politicians doesn’t lie, and lie like dogs. Possible he may excuse Democrat lies as being “overpromising” or some such, or more likely “lies told in the service of a greater truth aren’t lies”.
But I still say: too smart to believe what he just said. So he was lying.
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Also, you may feel your side’s lies aren’t really lies, per se, when all the fact checkers perform acrobatic contortions to explain how your sides lies aren’t really lies–or just overtly lie about them, and say the lies are true. They checked the facts! It’s true.
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People always say to me, “Why don’t Democrats just lie like Republicans?
Because they have the media do it for them.
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I think they over-estimate how appalled the general public, especially working class, is going to be that the peasants managed to cause a ruckus for a few hours, somewhat near to them.
There is an implicit elitism in the idea that the Capitol riot represents some unique evil and can be used to destroy the Republican party because the vast majority of Americans are horrified that our elite royalty were frightened and slightly inconvenienced, mainly out of their own overblown terror. IMO.
That broadcasts a sense of entitlement and superiority and a regard of the outside-the-beltway country as serfs . . . that AT BEST makes the issues a neutral one, in terms of votes. I think it even works against them. You don’t have to even connect the BLM and Antifa riots to the Capitol riot to get a sense that DC politicians are regarding themselves as special and royalty in this particular narrative.
I don’t think that’s remotely a vote winner. The whole “immediate aftermath of the Capitol riot” language from politicians and the media were about assaults on our sacred democracy and how insurrectionists invaded the hallowed halls of congress.
I don’t find that language compelling, myself.
whose NYT op-ed got their editorial page staff fired for making NYT staffers feel unsafe due to his advocacy for calling out the National Guard. Which Democrats then promptly did during the Capitol Hill riot when they were the targets and Trump supporters were the protesters/rioters
Again it’s the whole “we are a special class. This is for us, your beneficent God-kings. Not for you with your quaint little ‘small businesses’ and tragically sad little lives.”
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“the vast majority of Americans are horrified that our elite royalty were frightened and slightly inconvenienced, mainly out of their own overblown terror.”
More like AOC & Pelosi are auditioning for the role of Marie Antoinette.
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I do get a real feeling of “let them eat cake” vibe from our DC politicians.
“But my lords, the people cannot afford gas for their cars.”
“No gas? Then let them buy Teslas!”
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Your tax dollars at work, uncovering the real criminals.
https://www.ic3.gov/Media/Y2021/PSA210330
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This is what will kill Portland, et. al, being uninsurable:
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they voted for this…
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“The store eventually found another insurer but must pay four times more than the previous policy — tens of thousands of additional dollars per year — for a new policy that does not cover losses from civil unrest, Mr. Murfitt said.”
leave. there’s no way to make that work.
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not for a retailer, that is for sure.
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He seems foolish for staying, particularly if his insurance won’t cover rioting. He’s inviting the terrorists to burn him out, and it’s not like they don’t read the NYT for marching orders.
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That’s what I’m saying. I get why you don’t want to abandon what you thought was going to be your business until you died, you were going to leave it to your kids or sell it for retirement money or whatever . . . or it’s your passion and you don’t want to let it go.
But there is no way to build or maintain a business with a future in that kind of environment. There might be “holding out until the next election” kind of mentality but I think that’s probably naive.
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Apparently there is some accountability in the press for writing a false story:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/new-york-post-kamala-harris-correction-migrant-book/2021/04/27/ec297ac6-a769-11eb-bca5-048b2759a489_story.html
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So “conservative” media will be held accountable. Good to know.
While a demonstration of how all media is largely corrupt and irresponsible, writing stories out of nothing but their imagination for a convenient picture in this case, I still haven’t seen a WaPo story noting Taibbi’s coverage of RussiaGate, for example.
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Imagine if Trump had done this to BLM and or Antifa:
And Scott, I was officially wrong. Biden is worse than Trump.
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jnc:
And Scott, I was officially wrong. Biden is worse than Trump.
You got me on Taibbi, so call it even. And you are faster than me. It took me several years to change my mind on Taibbi. It only took you 3 months!
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I won’t star in cop shows either.
https://redstate.com/alexparker/2021/04/27/in-order-to-fight-white-supremacy-an-actress-vows-not-to-star-in-cop-shows-n370179
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And Scott, I was officially wrong. Biden is worse than Trump.
I find this an interesting statement. I think–and I thought before, thus voting for Trump–that the Biden administration would be worse than the Trump administration. This is generally even worse than I thought it would be but in general I give myself points for accuracy.
But I think it’s important to distinguish. Biden is better than Trump on the Tweeting. He’s better at not being an agent of chaos the way Trump was (and by this I mean specifically visible chaos that inflames the media and is highly visible to the world generally). He’s better at providing an illusion to the casual observer that the adults are in charge and, while nobody is perfect, things are much improved.
From a leadership standpoint I feel like he is mostly absent (as Trump often was, in most likelihood) and various factions in his administration are actually responsible for most of the actual governance. And I would much rather have the late-administration Trump team in charge than the Biden folks (which I expected would be the case). And while he would have likely been less than ideal and still corrupt and “random” (Biden is the guy who responded to 9/11 with the out-of-the-box suggestion that we randomly write a check for 200 million dollars to Iran as a response, if I recall, which now suggests to me corruption more than appeasement or random lunacy) . . . I still feel Biden might have been a less destructive force as president if 20 years younger.
But maybe not.
Another reason I voted for Trump and really hoped he’d win is just straight optimism. His arc in the presidency seemed (aside from his bloviation and mean-tweeting) upwards. He started out with a lot of bad hires and internal strife and awful press secretaries, and ended with, IMO, with much better folks in his administration, and a lot of huge wins at the end. If that arc had continued uninterrupted for another 4 years, I expect a lot of very good things would have happened. And obviously a lot of the bad things happening now would not have.
The double-whammy of COVID and riots was bad, and his initial responses were not ideal. But I expect they would have gotten better over the next 4 years, to the benefit of most everybody–but especially the moribund GOP.
But can’t prove a counter-factual. We’re getting what we’re getting, we will see how it turns out. 4 years of a McGovern presidency might not be the worse thing in the world, long term.
Long way of saying: I can see how looking at Biden one would consider him a better choice than Trump during the 2020 campaign. I don’t think he was but he might not have been nearly as bad, except for the folks in his cabinet, in his administration, and then general fashion amongst the governing left that “now is the time” to really pursue the deconstruction of America as founded and replace it with a green-energy utopia with affirmative segregation and racial division. Perfect storm sort of thing.
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It isn’t about Biden. It is about the left.
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Of course. It’s not Biden specifically (although I don’t think he was ever ideal, and the pass the media and now law enforcement gives the left on corruption would make him even less ideal). It’s the left and what the contemporary left does with power. Alas.
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Serious question for both you, Kevin, and for Jnc4p – Did either of you think, prior to the election that Biden would be the one actually calling the shots in regard to his Presidency? I have always thought that he’s mentally incapable of serious, sustained thinking due to dementia, old age, whatever and that his handlers were just putting peanut butter on the top of his mouth to make it look like he’s talking. I’m not being demeaning to you it’s just that it seemed obvious to me that he’s to infirmed for the job, well, any job really. Or were you merely expecting more moderation from his handlers than they are showing?
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Did either of you think, prior to the election that Biden would be the one actually calling the shots in regard to his Presidency?
I thought that highly unlikely, primarily due to his age. Also perhaps a bit due to his long career in Washington, I expect he was already fairly adjusted to having everything managed by others. But mostly age. I did not think he was going to be particularly in charge. I thought there was a possibility but I judged it to be low.
I was expecting more constraints, maybe more infighting, more concern about image and appearance–from his handlers than we’re getting. If you’re asking why it seems to be worse than I was expecting, it’s because I thought there would be more barriers or functional limitations. I did not think his people would be moderate. In fact, I expect there are barriers, which is why things aren’t even worse than they are–they don’t have unlimited power to get anything they want. They’re just getting more than I thought.
There was also some minor hope the press might start doing something a little like their job, and not actual be *more* deferential to Biden than they were to Obama. But that’s definitely not happening!
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I figured he would set the general tone and it would be more like his Senate career and the Obama administration and he would staff with the same people he had around him for years,
I did not expect him to go full woke as he positioned against that during the primaries. I thought it would be more Clinton style triangulation.
But how do the financial disclaimers go?
“Past performance is no guarantee of future results”
I had also hoped for the Republicans to keep one house of Congress, ideally the Senate.
I also did not expect the civil liberties violations to be worse than Trump. January 6th aka Woke 9/11 has radicalized the Democratic party, which is ironic given how much they supported the protests/riots over the summer.
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It isn’t ironic, it is how the left has always rolled. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
When has the left ever behaved in a remotely non-partisan, even-handed manner?
I can’t think of any
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For the record, I still don’t consider myself a Trump supporter by any stretch, but I got lesser of two evils calculation wrong, especially with Democrats having the House & Senate.
I’d much rather see Ron Desantis or another less belligerent Republican as president.
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Thanks, that’s interesting. I’m not sure less belligerence is going to work in the long run. You need grass roots support along with an everyman aura, belligerence establishes, for the base and the everyman, that you might be more than talk. I also think it takes fearlessness and a certain carelessness with words, a shoot from the hip inclination, to get very suspicious base voters to go for you. The kind of person that would tell HRC, to her face on national television, that she should be in jail, for example, or to always double-down on a position when it comes under withering attack along with the perception that you enjoy the fight.
Who has that fearlessness? I honestly don’t know.
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It isn’t ironic, it is how the left has always rolled. Free speech for me, but not for thee.
Well, that’s how the press has rolled. But the ACLU used to defend free speech for everybody. Often progressives were fighting for the free speech of people they disagreed with (in America, anyway; obviously not a thing various Communist around the world would have done).
When I considered myself a young liberal, I was fond of quoting the old “I may disagree with what you say but would defend to my death your right to say it” saw. One of them many reasons I’m not a lefty, on most things, today is that I learned that for a lot of progressives, free speech was not part of the philosophy (something I first observed with northern and Canadian lefties back in 1990).
When has the left ever behaved in a remotely non-partisan, even-handed manner?
I think you’d have to look at individuals and organizations (I would cite the ACLU again–as it was in the past, not how it is now). Arguably Bill Clinton behaved in a relative even-handed manner, after 1994 and political reality demanded it. Tip O’Neil and Reagan fought (and insulted) but dealt about as even-handedly with each other and you’d expect political enemies to.
SCOTUS appointments seem to have been relatively free of unfair, bad faith tactics until the Bork nomination.
I’m not going to say it was ever perfect, but I think it was better. But a lot more lefties back in the day were educated in civics and had some form of classical education, or had knowledge of the Western enlightenment as something other than a form of white supremacy. That’s not as likely for folks my age, less likely for those 10 years younger, pick someone 25 or 20 or younger and it’s possible they’ve never been really exposed to civics education or classical thinking or real history regarding life before the enlightenment.
Certainly you’re going to get less people who’ve absorbed some life lessons by regular church attendance or being in the boy scouts, etc.
I just think you were more likely to face a loyal opposition operating in good faith 30 or 50 years ago. Again–not all good people, and nobody good all the time. But better.
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@gbowden41:
Thanks, that’s interesting. I’m not sure less belligerence is going to work in the long run.
Less belligerence would work fine. If you have a Trump who kept his belligerence to issues and did more fighting with facts and data, you woulda really had something.
A Desantis will do fine. Someone less belligerent than Desantis would be fine, as long as they weren’t compliant or complacent. They cannot be Jeb Bush begging people to “please clap”. That’s not going to fly at all.
Politicians who want to get the Trump voters are going to have to be able to fight. But it will be better–not worse–if they can appear to have a greater command of the facts than Trump did. If they don’t seem bored when the topic shifts off of themselves for a moment.
I’ll give you this: any candidate (or president, if elected) cannot just repudiate Trump. Answers to questions about how they feel about Trump inciting the Capitol riot have to be: “He didn’t incite a riot. What’s more, you *know* he didn’t incite a riot. He asked them to protest peacefully, and while I would have said the word ‘peacefully’ a few more times to make sure I was making myself clear–he DID say it. And you ALL know he said it.” Yada yada.
Basically, he has to be NOT TRUMP but also NOT NEVERTRUMP.
And he has to be willing to fight. You don’t have to be tweeting nasty things and minor personalities who have offended you, or critiquing people you decided weren’t doing a good job for you. Or getting into fights about how many people were at your inauguration or complaining that you had been tricked by TikTok when people don’t show up to your rally.
It’s a balancing act. They just have to be careful about how much they surrender to the NeverTrump/Endless War/Surrender-to-the-Democrats-or-they’ll-call-us-Racist wing of the GOP.
We will see. Trump style belligerence is better than Jeb but not as good as having concise, factual answers locked-and-loaded for questions and disagreements. There’s belligerence and then just a willingness to say, “No, that’s wrong” or challenge the premise of loaded questions.
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“Thanks, that’s interesting. I’m not sure less belligerence is going to work in the long run.”
Maybe a better way to put it is not to make so many unforced errors and make yourself such an easy target.
DeSantis response to 60 minutes was an excellent example of how to push back effectively against the media. Much better than Trump.
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“The double-whammy of COVID and riots was bad, and his initial responses were not ideal.”
Trump said a lot of stupid things about COVID and doesn’t get any credit for what he or more accurately his administration actually got right:
“Why Aren’t We Celebrating Operation Warp Speed?
Partisanship shouldn’t prevent us from recognizing our own achievements.
Zaid Jilani”
https://www.inquiremore.com/p/why-arent-we-celebrating-operation
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No, he doesn’t get credit (although he ultimately did things wrong, as well, but it may not have been possible for him to get rid of Fauci and clean house at the CDC).
I don’t for a second believe HRC would have done a better job, or the Biden admin.
But no, there’s no acknowledging the other side did a good thing here, generally. Not from the opposing party, and not from the press, if the good thing was done by a Republican. That’s because they don’t want any votes from the Other Side. They are catering to a specific audience, always, of Good people. By definition, Good people don’t do bad things, and Bad people don’t do good things.
Ergo, you will not seem the press or Democrats calling the left on the carpet for bad behaviors or bad ideas–or predictions that don’t remotely come to pass, or calling their baseless opinions “science”, or anything. And you won’t see them talking about the Abraham Accords or Operation Warp Speed or gas prices under Trump or GDP growth during the Trump years, pre-COVID.
You’re also not likely to see Republicans pointing out anything good the Democrats do, and while they will call their own party on the carpet, it will usually be for political/optics reasons rather than something substantive.
Always exceptions. But no, I would not expect anybody on the left to celebrate what Trump accomplished–or even acknowledge, however flawed, that Trump’s border management/immigration strategy was on the whole better than what Biden is doing.
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As Jim Treacher says when a Republican does bad, the story is an indictment of the party and idealogy. When a Democrat does bad the story is about how the Republican are seizing on it and using it as a weapon.
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If it gets covered at all. Which it won’t always.
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